Investment firms PASH Global and ERIH Holdings have formed a joint venture (JV) to develop utility-scale solar and battery storage projects in Paraguay.
A spokesperson for UK-based PASH told Energy-Storage.news that the partnership would initially target 100MW of solar PV and 40MWh of separate, standalone battery storage projects in a first phase of investment.
A second phase could see that rise to a 200MW of PV and 70MWh of battery storage, they added.
The companies announced the first project would start production in 2024 while the remainder would be deployed between 2024 and 2025.
“We are pleased to partner with PASH and see significant opportunities for our JV to expand our solar and energy storage footprint. I am confident that this will pave the way to more opportunities in the LATAM renewables and storage market,” said ERIH CEO, Akin Gunduz.
Like most of Latin America, the grid-scale battery storage market in Paraguay is at a relatively early stage. However, recent moves by the government show that may be about to change.
In early 2021, the country’s grid operator and utility ANDE (Administración Nacional de Electricidad) announced plans to install a swathe of new solar-plus-storage facilities.
Detailed in a ‘Generation Master Plan 2021-2040’, seven of the projects paired PV with 2.5MWh of battery storage while three larger projects for 2024/25 were suggested with a capacity of 44MWh. See ANDE’s document (in Spanish) here.
In December 2021, executives from ANDE and Itaipu, which runs the third-largest run-of-river hydroelectric power plant in the world at 14GW, visited a Tesla battery storage site in California. The delegation announced they were considering using battery storage at the Itaipu plant as well as more widely in Paraguay.
PASH Global is headquartered in London, UK, while ERIH is based in Ankara, Turkey.
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