Capital invests in CSP with storage

21 May 2017



Capital One has acquired a $78 million stake in the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project a utility-scale solar facility featuring SolarReserve’s proprietary molten salt energy storage technology, enabling day and night operation. The facility delivers 110 MW of electricity plus 1100 MWh of energy storage to Nevada’s grid under a 25-year power purchase agreement with utility NV Energy.


Capital One has acquired a $78 million stake in the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project a utility-scale solar facility featuring SolarReserve’s proprietary molten salt energy storage technology, enabling day and night operation. The facility delivers 110 MW of electricity plus 1100 MWh of energy storage to Nevada’s grid under a 25-year power purchase agreement with utility NV Energy.

Currently, molten salt systems of this sort, at CSP facilities, account for a significant percentage of energy storage installed capacity worldwide.

SolarReserve believes “the use of molten salt represents the most flexible, efficient and cost-effective form of large-scale energy storage available today”.

SolarReserve, project developer and managing investor, along with initial equity investors ACS Cobra, and Santander, will maintain their ownership stake in the project, a “demonstration of their continued commitment”.

“Capital One’s investment demonstrates that the project’s proven performance and technology testing can satisfy commercial investor review, and confirms the market’s interest in SolarReserve’s advanced solar thermal technology,” said Stephen Mullennix, CFO, SolarReserve.

Capital One is described as a “tax equity” investor in the project. Tax equity investments in operating energy projects to better utilise the depreciation and other tax attributes are common in the US renewables sector. Once a solar energy project has completed construction and is commercially operating, developers often secure investment partners with income structures that can more efficiently utilise the tax benefits created by the investment in the project. 



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