Norway wealth fund seeks battery storage investment as market matures

By Nora Buli

OSLO, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Norway's sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday it hopes to make its first investments in battery storage systems, reflecting the growing prominence of batteries in stabilising increasingly intermittent power markets.

The $2.2 trillion sovereign fund, the world's largest, has invested in unlisted renewable energy infrastructure since 2021, targeting mostly offshore wind farms as well as onshore wind and solar assets.

Last year it became a shareholder in German transmission grid operator Tennet.

"We also want to really do our first big battery investments," the fund's head of energy and infrastructure, Harald von Heyden, told an energy conference in Oslo.

STILL LOOKING AT U.S. RENEWABLES

Despite some headwinds for renewables under U.S. President Donald Trump, there are still many onshore solar, wind and battery projects seeking capital in the United States, he added.

"We are more careful maybe than before, but we're not closing the door," von Heyden said, referring to U.S. energy investments.

The growth in intermittent renewables such as wind and solar has resulted in a rising number of negatively priced hours in power markets, during which owners could benefit from storing the energy rather than switching off systems.

The fund's minimum investment size is around 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), however, and it will not take more than a 50% stake in projects, with batteries previously not meeting these criteria, von Heyden told Reuters on the sidelines of the event.

"But now the battery centres are going even bigger and bigger," he said.

With previous energy investments the fund has worked with the "biggest, serious" partners such as Iberdrola in Spain and RWE in Germany.

"So we're really looking for that company in the battery space," von Heyden said, but declined to provide more details on markets or partners being looking at.

($1 = 0.8402 euros)