We're investing in the UK's energy storage capability
We’re investing in the future of renewable energy and supporting the UK's transition to a low carbon economy.
We're doing this through our participation in GLIL, the infrastructure fund. GLIL has committed to invest up to £150m in Flexion Energy, the modern utility company and energy storage infrastructure specialist. The investment will see Flexion develop, build, own and manage energy storage systems in the UK, specifically large-scale batteries connected to and servicing the electricity grid.
Energy storage underpins the switch to renewable sources of energy, serving as a critical pillar in enabling electrification to help the UK meet its net-zero carbon emissions targets. Flexion’s development of storage infrastructure will help stabilise the transition to renewable energy in the UK and provide security to the grid by reducing volatility associated with the production of renewable energy.
GLIL’s investment will enable Flexion, which has developed more than 100MW of energy storage assets to date, to construct and make operational an established pipeline of up to 300MW of grid connected battery storage systems exclusively for GLIL over the next two years. Flexion, with GLIL’s support, has an objective to deliver 1GW of operational storage systems within five years.
GLIL was established in 2015 by Greater Manchester Pension Fund and ourselves with £500 million of capital commitments. Since then, Lancashire County Pension Fund, Merseyside Pension Fund, Nest and West Yorkshire Pension Fund have all joined GLIL. This pooling of capital and professional resources allows participating funds to invest in assets that they may not have been able to access if investing alone.
As at the of writing, committed capital is at £3.6 billion, of which £2.6 billion is currently deployed across 13 diverse assets, a selection of which can be found here on the GLIL website.