Southern California energy startup esVolta just announced the closing of a $140 million credit facility, which will help fund the company’s utility-scale energy storage projects.
There’s been a recent uptick in energy storage companies working to drive us toward a more sustainable future.
Utilities have to constantly burn fossil fuels to deliver energy to power grids, ramping up or down in order to meet demand. This results in the price of energy fluctuating greatly based on our energy needs. Energy storage systems allow energy consumers to stockpile power and reduce their dependence on the grid. This has several benefits: it can help save money by drawing in power during off-peak hours, it can act as a backup during power outages and it can be used to store power generated from renewables like wind and solar.
esVolta is in the business of developing and operating large battery systems for the purpose of storing energy. But these batteries aren’t the ones in your TV remote, or even the ones powering your electric vehicle. These batteries are much, much larger and are measured in Megawatts.
The company has eight battery storage facilities, which it refers to as its “esFaraday” portfolio. These projects have a total capacity of 136 Megawatts and 480 Megawatt hours. For perspective, the average American home uses 10.9 Megawatt hours a year.
esVolta has several contracts with Californian electric utilities companies in order to run these battery storage facilities. These facilities will act as ancillary services to help supplement the California electric grid and provide better service to anyone who gets electricity from participating utilities.
“The esFaraday transaction is one of the largest and most innovative debt transactions completed to date in the fast growing energy storage sector,” esVolta VP and CFO Krish Koomar said in a statement. “We greatly appreciate the leadership and diligence which CIT, SFS, CoBank and KeyBanc displayed in order to arrange and close this portfolio financing.”
