Hunt Energy Network targets putting 500MW of distribution-level batteries into Texas’ ERCOT market
An energy storage project pipeline of 500MW in Texas’s ERCOT market is being developed by Dallas-headquartered distributed energy resources developer and operator Hunt Energy Network.
Hunt Energy Network said that the pipeline consists of distribution-level resources and that 100MW of its projects are already at “advanced stages of development,” and targeted to be in operation by Q1 2022. The remaining 400MW are expected to be commissioned over the following three years.
The company is a subsidiary of disruptive energy technologies investor Hunt Energy Enterprises, which is in turn part of a larger group of family-owned companies involved in everything from oil & gas exploration to private equity investment. Hunt Energy Network is executing the projects through a new venture which it has formed in collaboration with global asset and wealth management group Manulife Investment Management.
“This new venture combines an experienced organisation deeply rooted in the Texas energy markets with an investor with a track record of successful long-term partnerships. This is good news for Texas’s grid reliability and for the broader, rapidly growing energy storage industry,” Patrick Norton, managing director of investment bank Javelin Capital, which advised Hunt Energy Network on the deal, said.
The Hunt Energy-Manulife venture will be called HEN Infrastructure and will manage as well as develop the portfolio, and Hunt Energy Network’s proprietary platform, called TraDER, will dispatch the assets into the ERCOT market.
The platform creates data-driven strategies for siting projects and optimising assets in competitive markets and will automate the energy storage systems’ trading and settlement activities. Acting as fast-responding generation and load resources within the ERCOT power market, they will help balance supply and demand of power across the ERCOT grid, which serves more than 80% of Texas.
