Akaysha Energy, the battery storage developer owned by United States investment giant BlackRock, has refinanced its project-level debt into a AUD$1.75 billion (USD 1.22 billion) portfolio-level financing facility that will support the next stage of its Australian growth.
The company said the facility refinances existing project-level debt across its Brendale, Orana, Ulinda Park and Elaine battery energy storage systems (BESS) into a single portfolio-level financing structure.
The 155 MW / 298 MWh Ulinda Park and 205 MW / 410 MWh Brendale batteries in Queensland, and the 415 MW / 1,660 MWh Orana BESS in New South Wales (NSW) are part of Akaysha’s operational battery energy storage capacity. The 311 MW / 1,244 MWh Elaine BESS is currently being built in Victoria and is on track to complete in the second half of 2027.
Andrew Wegman, managing director and chief financial and investment officer at Akaysha, said the financing package has also been designed to provide flexibility as the company progresses an almost 6 GW / 25 GWh development pipeline of large-scale BESS projects across the National Electricity Market (NEM).
“This is an important milestone for Akaysha and it was pleasing to see continued strong support from lenders for our operating portfolio, our pipeline and Australia’s energy transition,” he said.
“As well as refinancing our existing operating and construction assets, this portfolio-level facility gives us the flexibility to accelerate our next wave of projects while we continue deploying capital where we see the strongest opportunities across the pipeline.”
The transaction comes after Akaysha recently achieved full commercial operations at the 850 MW / 1,680 MWh Waratah Super Battery in NSW.
Akaysha’s development pipeline includes the 275 MW / 1,100 MWh Deer Park battery project, the 400 MW / 1, 600 MWh Glenrowan, and the 1,000 MW / 4,000 MWh Connewarren BESS project, all in Victoria. It is also progressing the 250 MW / 1,000 MWh Oaky Creek BESS in Queensland and the 100 MW / 200 MWh Palmerston project in Tasmania. The company’s South Australian projects include the 150 MW / 600 MWh Mobilong and 250 MW / 1,000 MWh Brinkworth BESS.
The new financing was supported by a consortium of 11 banks, including ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, BNP Paribas, Bank of China, CIBC, Deutsche Bank, DNB, ING, Mizuho, MUFG and Rabobank.
The post Akaysha secures $1.2 billion finance package to grow battery platform appeared first on Energy Storage.
