Gore Street NAV drops 27% as asset sales test European storage valuations
UK-listed battery fund’s annual results deepen concern about revenue compression across merchant storage markets.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund reported a net asset value of 74.9 pence per share for the year to 31 March 2026, down 27% from 102.8p a year earlier.4 The London-listed fund has started or accelerated sale processes for three pre-construction assets across Germany, Ireland and Great Britain, including the 22 MW Cremzow project in Germany which is in late-stage negotiations.4
The NAV decline tracks a problem familiar to European battery investors. Revenues from wholesale arbitrage and balancing services have compressed as renewable penetration rises and new capacity floods grids. German day-ahead power traded Tuesday (2026-07-21) at €124.46/MWh, but intraday volatility — the lifeblood of short-duration storage — has narrowed as solar saturation flattens daytime price curves.2,4
Gore Street’s operational capacity grew to 643.11 MW/840.9 MWh at period-end, up from 417.11 MW/386.75 MWh a year earlier, across 28 assets on five grids.4 The fleet added megawatts faster than revenue per megawatt, a pattern seen across UK and German BESS portfolios since late 2024.
The company is retrofitting. Augmentation works at two GB assets — the 79.9 MW Stony and 49.9 MW Ferrymuir sites — are on track to double duration to two hours by December 2026.4 Longer duration lets operators capture more of the post-solar evening ramp and sell into capacity markets, but the retrofit spend adds cost before revenue improves.
New supply keeps coming. Brockwell Energy has applied for consent to build a 100 MW/200 MWh battery in East Ayrshire, alongside its other storage developments at New Oak (100 MW) and Didcot (300 MW).4 Scotland has become a hotspot for BESS applications, partly because grid constraints on wind export create local price spreads that storage can exploit.
None of this is unique to Gore Street. Renewables supplied 58% of German power consumption in the first half of 2026, up from 55.8% a year earlier, according to estimates from ZSW and BDEW reported by DPA on July 1.2,3 Higher green output compresses wholesale prices during windy and sunny hours, and while it strengthens the case for storage in theory, the revenue stack depends on extreme spreads being frequent and wide.
SSE reported a 4% drop in operating profit to £1.8bn for the year ending 31 March 2026, reflecting higher capital expenditure rather than revenue decline.1 The generator-investor space is sending mixed signals: the buildout continues at record rates, but listed equity valuations are repricing.
The key question for the second half is whether duration upgrades and asset sales will close the valuation gap. Buyers for pre-construction German assets have been scarce, and late-stage negotiations like Cremzow will test whether there is bid depth at prices that allow fund-level NAV recovery.4 If the Middleton asset in GB clears at a discount, it will set a comp for the entire UK merchant BESS market.