'Tremendous addition' | Engie ups US pace with 6GW swoop for solar and storage pipeline
Deal has potential to vault French developer into upper ranks of US clean power capacity operators later this decade as market growth poised to accelerate
France’s Engie has acquired a 6GW battery storage and PV development portfolio in the US made up of 33 early- to late-stage utility-scale projects from UK-based player Belltown Power.
The transaction – financial terms of which were not made public – positions Engie to become a larger player in the US clean energy market which appears poised for unprecedented growth led by solar and storage in the second half of this decade.
"These projects are a tremendous addition to our existing renewables pipeline and will help to further accelerate Engie’s role in the energy transition,” said Dave Carroll, head of Engie North America.
“The mix of solar, paired and stand-alone storage across a wide set of geographies both complements our existing portfolio as well as provides opportunities for expansion into new areas in the US,” he added.
On 1 January, Engie ranked 11th in utility solar ownership with 902MW and just 4MW of storage, and 14th in onshore wind with 2.3GW, according to national trade group American Clean Power Association. Engie said it had 3.9GW of all three technologies in US operation on 30 June.
The pipeline acquired from Belltown includes 2.7GW of PV, 2.6GW of standalone battery storage, and 700MW of paired PV and storage.
The projects are in three bulk electric power markets – ERCOT, MISO, and PJM – and in the US part of the 14-state Western Interconnection, one of the two major alternating current grids in North America.
The Western Interconnection, which includes the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and northern part of Mexico’s Baja California, in the US encompasses mainly individual vertically integrated utilities that act as balancing authorities. CAISO is the lone bulk power market there serving California and part of Nevada.
Engie is also involved in the fast-growing US offshore wind sector. It is part of joint ventures with site control over three lease areas off the coasts of New England and New York State with at least 3GW of potential power generation capacity.
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