New Energy Risk and Ascend Analytics Support Leading Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund on Merchant Battery Projects in ERCOT

New Energy Risk (“NER”) and Ascend Analytics, LLC (“Ascend”) have announced the closing of an industry-first energy storage insurance policy providing coverage for the performance of Ascend’s battery storage forecasting and bidding optimization platform. The policy will enable the financing of a portfolio of grid-scale energy storage facilities in Texas’s ERCOT power market.  NER is a leading insurance agency specializing in insurance solutions for technology in the energy transition that act as an effective bridge between technology innovators, their customers and lenders, and the insurance markets. Ascend is a leader in energy market valuation and dispatch optimization, whose independent economic assessments have supported over 100 project financings and whose SmartBidder™ platform conducts live dispatch operations across six ISO’s in the United States.    

The policy ensures the performance of Ascend’s forecasting and SmartBidder^TM technology stack to provide a revenue floor to the project over a multi-year term. Unlike alternative revenue risk transfer solutions, the offering both secures minimum revenues and permits the projects access to upside revenue from lucrative, high-volatility events that are regularly experienced in ERCOT.

Bringing to the market new energy storage capacity is a necessary element of the energy transition, adding flexibility and resilience to the grid to permit more renewable capacity.  

“Ascend's storage valuation has supported a majority of batteries operating in competitive power markets. In addition to SmartBidder's proven bid optimization capability, Ascend leads the market in their ability to provide the analytics required to assess and actively manage energy storage market risk,” stated Tom Dickson, CEO at NER. “NER has been able to apply its modeling expertise of highly technical risks to Ascend’s robust framework to implement a precise transfer of risk.” continued Dickson.

“This offering with NER helps developers confidently deploy capital to support merchant storage operations by providing a revenue floor while preserving the upside potential of ERCOT’s more extreme events. The innovative downside risk coverage enabled the storage developer to earn minimum returns, facilitating asset financing and furthering the transition to reliable clean energy in Texas,” stated Gary Dorris, CEO of Ascend Analytics.

About New Energy Risk

New Energy Risk is a provider of innovative technical risk transfer solutions to sustainable industry worldwide and pioneered the development of large-scale technology performance insurance. It was founded in 2010 to provide complex risk assessment and serve as an effective bridge between clean-energy innovators and insurers enabling the commercialization of novel technologies and business cases. Since then, New Energy Risk has helped its customers gain over $3 billion in financing and sales for renewable energy and new technology deployments. To learn more, please visit www.newenergyrisk.com.

Read the Business Wire Press Release here.