SUSI Partners confirm acquisition of 50% stake in AMS’ battery fleet

It is the first investment in U.S. for SUSI Partners, a Swiss firm that runs a rare fund committed to storage assets and invests on behalf of large institutions

Reports confirm that SUSI Partners, the Swiss investment manager, has announced the acquisition of 50% stake in AMS’s portfolio of battery storage systems in Southern California.

The deal consists of a package of more than 90 lithium-ion systems which add up to storage capacity of 340 megawatt-hours and 63 megawatts.

Back in 2014, AMS received contracts with utility Southern California Edison to install batteries at industrial and commercial sites to lower both grid demand and customer bills in constrained areas.

In addition, AMS owes the utility 200 megawatt and 50 megawatts-hours of capacity but recently the company mentioned it would build out its fleet to 352 megawatt and 62 megawatt hours to create greater operational flexibility.

Apparently, by mid-March, AMS had bought 142 megawatt and 27 megawatt-hours of energy online with a storage capacity at 40 sites within SCE territory. AMS secured a partner, Green Investment Group in Macquarie in 2016, which supplied $200 million to get the portfolio through development phase.

Energy storage director at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, Ravi Manghani stated that the arrival of SUSI in U.S. and acquisition of half of the stake in Macquarie’s portfolio signals a jump in storage investments.

This has supposedly become the very first investment in U.S. for SUSI Partners, a Swiss firm that runs a rare fund committed to storage assets and invests on behalf of large institutions. That fund had achieved a final close with 252 million euros in 2018. Previously, in the U.S. the ecosystem of storage asset was limited to only few names which includes General Capital and Macquarie.

Batteries are costly to deploy and generate returns over long period of time and if developers can get the capital to develop such projects then they still get the benefit from unloading them and can free up the capitals for new projects.