Andrew Waranch is the founder, president and CEO of Spearmint Energy. Waranch has a 27-year career in the power space, with experience working for banks, utilities and hedge funds. His company, Spearmint Energy, is delivering one of the largest battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the United States — the 150-megawatt/300-megawatt-hour Revolution project in West Texas. Kali Persall, editor of Institutional Investing in Infrastructure (i3), interviewed Waranch for a recent video. The following is an excerpt of that conversation.
How has the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) impacted BESS project development, and what will the BESS development environment look like in 2024?
Prior to the passage of the IRA, battery energy storage was economic in Texas a