Calibrant Energy Closes $145M Debt Facility With 120 MWh PJM Battery

Calibrant Energy closed a $145 million debt facility led by Investec on Nov. 10 for solar and battery storage projects across several U.S. power markets, including a 120 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) for a hyperscale data center customer in PJM territory, on which the company says site mobilization has begun, according to its release.

Citi, Liberty Bank and Siemens Financial Services also took part in the facility, according to the release as published by POWER Magazine. Energy-Storage.news, which covered the deal on Nov. 11, describes Calibrant as an energy-as-a-service platform. Investec's Fred Petit said the bank supported Calibrant and Macquarie on the transaction; Calibrant's own site says it is backed by Macquarie Asset Management.

Calibrant says it now has more than 5.9 GWh of battery storage in operation, in construction or under exclusive development agreements, and that this total includes additional sites with the same hyperscale customer, without saying how many or at what stage. If the 120 MWh is counted in the 5.9 GWh, as the release implies but does not state, it is about 2% of that portfolio on Voltgrid's arithmetic.

Why storage matters for connection speed

Calibrant's argument is that on-site batteries let a data center control when it draws power, which it says supports faster interconnection and avoids grid upgrades that would otherwise fall on other ratepayers. CEO Phil Martin said the financial close and site mobilization for the hyperscale project show that large-load flexibility is "a commercial reality today". That is a company claim, not a measured result.

The release describes Calibrant's model as turnkey and zero-capex, and says Calibrant can develop, own and operate such systems; it does not describe the ownership or contract terms of this project. Under that model, Calibrant rather than the data-center operator pays the up-front cost, the company says, while the load is still held back by the grid.

What the release leaves out

The 120 MWh figure is energy only. Neither source states the system's power rating in MW, so its duration in hours cannot be calculated. The customer, the site, the battery chemistry, the supplier and the in-service date are also not named.

For scale, Energy-Storage.news recalled that Calibrant announced a 31 MW/62 MWh BESS at Aligned Data Centres' campus in the Pacific Northwest in October 2025. Aligned called it the first U.S. battery system built specifically to bring a large data center online sooner. As Voltgrid reported, Lydian's 150 MW/600 MWh Faraday BESS in Utah backs a Meta data center; its 600 MWh is five times the 120 MWh Calibrant has disclosed, and Calibrant has given no MW figure to compare.

The PJM setting adds pressure. PJM expects 182,426 MW of operational capacity against a forecast winter peak of about 147,500 MW, which would be a record if reached; the all-time winter peak is 143,700 MW. Large-load connection rules are still being worked out, which is the gap Calibrant says its on-site storage fills.

How a data center battery speeds a grid connection

A utility sizes a new connection for the hardest hour, when a data center's load meets peak demand on the grid. An on-site battery can charge off-peak and discharge at that peak, so the site draws less when the grid is tightest.

Two ratings describe the battery: MW is how fast it can discharge, and MWh is how much energy it holds. Calibrant gave only 120 MWh for the PJM system, so its output is unknown. At Aligned, rated 31 MW / 62 MWh, Calibrant's chief commercial officer said the data center was waiting on utility power because of its peak-hour load. Whether the PJM battery shortens the wait is unconfirmed.

What is not confirmed yet

Only the company has described the project. No utility, PJM or the data-center customer has commented on whether the battery shortens the interconnection timeline, and the release gives no date for operation. The split of the $145 million between solar, storage and the refinancing of existing assets is not stated in the sources Voltgrid read.