How a Tesla-Powered Battery Farm Will Resurrect a Dead Coal Plant’s Legacy
Macquarie’s Eku Energy Bets Big on the UK’s Storage Boom—With Megapacks and Creative Financing
In a poetic twist of energy transition, the site of the Ocker Hill coal-fired power station—shuttered in 1977 and demolished eight years later—will soon host one of the UK’s most ambitious battery storage projects. Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) just advised NatWest and SMBC on debt financing for Macquarie-backed Eku Energy’s 99 MW/198 MWh Ocker Hill BESS, including an uncommitted accordion facility to scale up capacity. The deal underscores how fossil fuel relics are becoming hotspots for grid-scale storage.
“This isn’t just about replacing coal with batteries—it’s rewriting energy infrastructure DNA,” says Henry Stewart, the WFW lead who helmed a 15+ member legal team spanning finance, tax, and regulatory specialties.
The project, part of Eku Energy’s 1 GW UK portfolio acquired from Bluestone Energy, will deploy 54 Tesla Megapacks managed by H&MV Engineering. SmartestEnergy locked in a 10-year tolling agreement to monetize the system’s grid-balancing potential. Construction kicks off in June 2025, targeting late 2026 commissioning—just as the UK races to meet its 2030 flexibility targets.
WFW’s Stewart notes the deal’s complexity: “From hedging to real estate, every clause had to future-proof the project against regulatory shifts.” The accordion facility, a rarity in BESS financing, allows Eku to expand capacity as market conditions evolve—a hedge against Britain’s volatile ancillary services pricing.
Colombia’s Clean Energy Shuffle
Meanwhile, in a separate transaction, Statkraft is offloading its Colombian renewables arm (Enerfín Colombia) to state oil giant Ecopetrol. The move signals how traditional fossil players are scrambling to buy rather than build green portfolios—a trend that could accelerate as battery storage valuations mature.
“The Ocker Hill deal proves storage is now bankable at coal-plant scale,” says one London-based energy analyst. “But the real test is whether these projects can withstand merchant revenue risk.”
As Eku Energy’s Tesla-powered site rises from coal’s ashes, the industry will watch whether such hybrid financing models—part debt, part flexible accordion—become the template for the next wave of storage projects. One thing’s certain: the ghosts of old power plants are getting a second life as grid-scale batteries.
