Elements Green Secures £140m for UK’s Giant Staythorpe Battery Project

• Elements Green secures £140 m from Goldman Sachs Alternatives to build the 360-MW/720-MWh Staythorpe battery in Nottinghamshire, slated for operation in 2027 and capable of powering 95,000 homes daily.

London-based renewables developer Elements Green has clinched a £140-million (USD 190 m) project-finance deal to build its 360-MW/720-MWh Staythorpe battery energy storage system (BESS) in Nottinghamshire—set to become one of the largest standalone batteries operating on Britain’s grid. The unitranche facility is being provided by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, marking the investment bank’s latest foray into large-scale storage as the UK scrambles for flexible capacity to back up fast-growing wind and solar fleets.

Structured as long-tenor, non-recourse debt, the financing is underpinned by two revenue anchors: a 15-year capacity-market contract awarded in February and a floor agreement with EDF that guarantees a minimum income stream from traded power services. Elements Green said the package “future-proofs” the project against wholesale price volatility while keeping upside from lucrative ancillary-service markets.

Early civil works have already begun on land adjacent to National Grid’s 400-kV Staythorpe substation, with full commissioning targeted for mid-2027. Once energised, the battery will be able to discharge at full power for two hours—enough to meet the daily electricity needs of roughly 95,000 homes, or a city the size of Cambridge.

Construction is being led by G2 Energy, part of Mitie Power & Grid, under a £71.5-million engineering, procurement and construction contract that also covers a new grid-connection bay. Chinese manufacturer Hithium will supply the lithium-ion battery cabinets, while Mitie will build the 400-kV switchyard that ties the plant directly into the transmission system, minimising curtailment risk for local renewables.

Staythorpe cleared planning in June 2024 and sits alongside an 800-MW solar farm still in development by Elements Green, giving the company options to co-locate charging from surplus daytime generation in future phases. The developer aims to transform itself into a 3-GW independent power producer (IPP) by 2030 and says this financing “validates investor confidence in our build-and-operate model for storage at scale.”

Analysts note that the deal lands as UK storage revenues rebound on the back of rising volatility and new National Grid contracts for grid-stability services. With unit-ranche debt still rare in the nascent BESS space, Staythorpe could become a template for other gigawatt-hour-scale projects seeking bankable structures in a rapidly maturing market.