Lightshift co-founder discusses expansion after USD 100m investment from Greenbacker
Lightshift Energy looks to expand its C&I portfolio in the utility-scale energy storage market following the company’s rebrand from Delorean Power and an additional USD 100m investment from Greenbacker Capital Management, Lightshift Co-Founder and Managing Partner Rory Jones said in an interview with NPM.
Jones continued saying portfolio expansion plans include adding a few East Coast states to this year’s pipeline.
These plans aren’t finalized, and the developer hasn’t announced which East Coast states will be added. But, under the “Delorean” name, the developer operated in the PJM Interconnection and New England-ISO (NE-ISO), according to co-founders Michael Herbert and Jones in a previous interview with NPM.
Lightshift is using this investment and a previous USD 20m Greenbacker vehicle for its current development pipeline of over 20 battery projects and 4,000 MW projected to commercialize over the next few years.
USD 80m will support construction and operations of Lightshift’s current portfolio. This includes a 10.5 MW battery facility in Danville, Virginia and a 5 MW battery storage project, built with the Holden Municipal Light Department (HLMD) with oversight from the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC).
Lightshift favors projects that involve working with municipal utilities for protection from fast-rising capacity and transmission costs that batteries are ideally suited to mitigate.
“Working with utilities allows us to unlock much better economics through scale,” Jones added.
Jones also said Lightshift is refining its product offerings. In a previous interview with NPM, he explained that Delorean was using lithium-ion batteries to fuel its storage systems, but the company was evaluating all longer-duration technologies.
The funds will also be used to scale the development team and accelerate sales, according to the press release.
Rebrand
With this financial backing and ambitious expansion plans, Jones further explained the rebrand became official on March 25.
Lightshift collaborated with external consultants to align on a new name, update the website and refresh the brand identity.
“We feel that the new name better reflects the company's mission to transform the way that energy is managed and distributed,” Jones said. “It was a rigorous and thoughtful process. We changed our whole identity, but our mission and the work we’re doing remain the same—as an energy storage developer, owner and operator focused on utility-scale projects of all sizes – on the transmission system, at the distribution level and with large C&I customers.”
Jones said the rebranding is an attempt to broaden the company’s reach. There has been a significant amount of grid panic and a demand crisis, so there’s an even more dire need for grid-stabilizing resources such as Lightshift’s.
With data centers and large C&I consumers deploying renewables and EV charging ports, demand is increasing significantly faster than expected. Legacy electric infrastructure is also making new entries of capacity much harder to achieve, Jones added.
To keep pace with demand while meeting critical reliability requirements, Greenbacker Principal Quinn Pasloske said Lightshift is advancing its team, growing its pipeline, and commercializing its assets.
“Greenbacker is focused on investing in developers and companies that are looking to accelerate the energy transition including batteries, behind-the-meter generation, microgrids, and the electrification of transit,” Pasloske said.
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
NPM US (New Project Media) is a leading data, intelligence and events company dedicated to providing origination led coverage of the renewable energy market for the development, finance, advisory & corporate community.