UK National Wealth Fund commits up to £200m to Equitix-led £500m Eelpower battery storage platform

Mechanism

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) is a UK government financial institution wholly owned by HM Treasury, mandated to catalyse private co-investment into UK infrastructure and industrial capacity. Here NWF joined infrastructure manager Equitix and Australian pension fund Aware Super to launch a £500 million platform operated by Eelpower Energy, with NWF committing up to £200 million. The platform will build, own and operate grid-scale BESS assets, starting with identified seed assets already entering construction alongside a wider pipeline, targeting over 1GW of new battery storage capacity for the UK grid. NWF Interim CEO Ian Brown called battery storage "crucial for successful integration of renewables into the UK energy system and therefore a priority area for the NWF"; Energy Minister Michael Shanks said the deal shows the government is "serious about developing and backing battery storage to unlock Britain's renewable potential."

Downstream implications

• Extends NWF's pattern (also seen in its Cornish Lithium equity stake, Roam

EV charging debt facility, and the separate Fidra Energy/Thorpe Marsh equity deal a fortnight later) of anchoring capital-intensive UK energy-transition infrastructure with direct equity or co-investment rather than grants.

• A second large NWF-backed BESS commitment within weeks (alongside Fidra

Energy's Thorpe Marsh) signals grid-scale storage as a sustained, multi-project state-anchor priority rather than a one-off deal, tied to the UK's Clean Power 2030 mission.

• Brings in non-UK institutional capital (Aware Super) alongside the state

vehicle, a recurring NWF co-investment structure for de-risking scale.

Open questions

• Which specific seed assets/sites are entering construction first under

the platform, and their individual capacity (MW/MWh).

• Whether NWF's £200m is a one-off tranche or, as with Fidra, an opening

commitment against a larger pipeline.