Eku Energy acquires 300 MW Didcot battery storage project
Eku Energy has completed the acquisition of the planned 300 MW / 600 MWh Didcot battery energy storage system (BESS) in Oxfordshire, marking the company's first transmission-connected project on UK soil. The asset was acquired from TBC Partners, a London-based joint family office focused on energy transition and impact infrastructure. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Didcot BESS will connect to the UK National Grid via an underground cable running to the nearby Didcot Substation, a 400 kV facility that National Grid has been upgrading since last year. Those works added three electrical equipment bays and three supergrid transformers, expanding the substation's capacity to support both storage projects and new data centre connections. Construction on the Didcot BESS is scheduled to begin later this year, with grid connection targeted for 2028.
Strategic significance
The site carries particular significance beyond its rated capacity. Didcot Substation sits roughly two miles from Culham, Oxfordshire, which was designated the UK's first AI Growth Zone. Planned data centre clusters in AI Growth Zones place exceptional demand on local grid infrastructure, and co-locating large-scale battery storage near such a designation positions Eku to provide both frequency response and capacity services to an area where power demand is expected to grow substantially.
Eku Energy chief financial officer Erin Lee said: "Sites like Didcot BESS play an integral role in migrating the UK towards an electrified, low-carbon energy system." Lee added that the company intends to grow its BESS footprint in the UK and develop projects that help the country meet its rising power needs in a clean and sustainable way.
Eku brings relevant prior experience from Australia, where it developed, constructed and operates the 200 MW / 400 MWh Rangebank BESS near Melbourne, Victoria. The company describes Rangebank as a comparable high-voltage transmission-connected project and expects to apply similar expertise at Didcot. Eku is jointly owned by a Macquarie Asset Management managed fund and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), giving the company access to patient institutional capital.
Market and regulatory context
The UK grid-scale battery storage market is expanding rapidly as National Grid ESO procures more frequency response and balancing services to accommodate a growing share of intermittent renewables. Several multi-hundred-megawatt BESS projects are now in construction or late-stage development across England and Wales, with transmission-connected assets commanding higher value than distribution-connected alternatives due to their ability to dispatch energy across the broader system.
The project also sits within the policy context of the UK Government's Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which identifies flexible storage as a critical enabler of a renewables-dominated grid. Developers of large storage assets must navigate the Connection and Use of System Code (CUSC) and comply with the Grid Code's requirements for transmission-connected plant, both administered by National Grid Electricity System Operator. Obtaining a firm transmission connection date of 2028 in the current constrained connections queue represents a commercially valuable milestone in its own right.
TBC Partners was advised on the sale by Knight Frank Capital Advisory. The seller retains an active interest in the data centre sector, noting the shifting energy demands of that industry as a continuing focus area.