Foresight Clinches UK’s Largest Two-Hour BESS with 400-MW HEIT Deal

• Foresight buys Harmony Energy Income Trust, adding 400 MW / 800 MWh across eight UK battery sites and cementing the country’s largest operational two-hour BESS fleet.

Foresight Group LLP has vaulted to the front of Britain’s storage market by buying Harmony Energy Income Trust plc (HEIT), gaining an eight-site, grid-connected battery portfolio totalling 400 MW/800 MWh—the biggest operational two-hour fleet in the country.

Structured as a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement, the all-cash offer of GBP 0.924 per share values HEIT’s equity at GBP 209.9 million (USD 285 million) and tops a rival bid from UK generator Drax that was abandoned in April.

Ownership is split 49 % to Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners II (FEIP II) and 51 % to Blackmead Infrastructure Ltd, an existing Foresight portfolio vehicle. The deal delivers immediate scale and revenue diversification for FEIP II’s planned pan-European storage platform while giving Blackmead a cash-generating anchor asset base. “Battery storage is critical to enabling a renewables-led power system, and this portfolio offers immediate scale, strong economics and proven performance,” said Richard Thompson, FEIP II co-manager.

All eight batteries are fully operational across England and Scotland, each configured for two-hour duration—well suited to evening-peak price spreads and National Grid’s ancillary-services auctions. At 800 MWh, the fleet can shift roughly 1 % of the UK’s daily summer solar output—enough to power around 300,000 homes for two hours—and positions Foresight to bid into balancing markets at a scale previously dominated by oil-major-backed players.

The transaction also illustrates how institutional capital is coalescing around storage after volatile 2023-24 merchant revenues highlighted the need for diversified portfolios and sophisticated trading strategies. With more than 5 GW of standalone batteries now live and another 20 GW consented, analysts expect a wave of consolidation as funds seek multi-asset platforms that can weather future price cannibalisation. Foresight’s move, coupled with recent PPAs and project financings, underscores investor conviction that storage is the keystone of the UK’s 70-GW solar and 50-GW offshore-wind ambitions for 2035.