Eolian, L.P. announced the closing of a $463 million financing package arranged by Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking to support the construction of Padua 2 and Padua 3, two large-scale battery energy storage systems totaling 350 MW / 1.7 GWh in Bexar County, Texas. This funding will complete the final phases of the Padua Complex, set to become the largest battery energy storage development in Texas and one of the largest globally.
Upon completion in Spring 2026, the full Padua Complex will deliver 400 MW / 1.8 GWh of instant-ramping capacity at a strategic substation near the retiring J.K. Spruce coal units and the aging V.H. Braunig gas plant, a key location for south-to-north transmission flows in Texas. Padua 1, a 50 MW, ~2-hour project, is already operational, while construction is underway on Padua 2 (150 MW) and Padua 3 (200 MW), both with ~5-hour discharge durations. All phases use Tesla-supplied battery equipment. Eolian developed, constructed, and will operate all phases using its in-house asset and optimization teams, leveraging experience from operating a 300 MW ERCOT BESS fleet.
The Padua Complex addresses critical grid needs, identified by Eolian in 2018 and highlighted by ERCOT in 2023, as a key transmission pinch point requiring additional resources. With over $700 million in private investment, the project maximizes existing transmission capacity until regional 345 kV upgrades are completed in 2030. Padua 2 and 3 will be the longest-duration BESS projects in ERCOT, enabling ~5-hour discharge to meet technical requirements studied by ERCOT and legislated by the Texas Legislature. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas noted that such battery deployments significantly stabilize the Texas grid during high-demand periods. “Under Governor Abbott’s leadership, Texas is showing the nation how to build energy infrastructure today that ensures sustained economic expansion for the future. By calling for and then passing into law new reliability products for the Texas grid, the Governor and the Legislature sent a clear market signal expressing the need and desire for the deployment of battery energy storage systems designed with four-hour or longer duration that directly led to our substantial investment in this project,” said Aaron Zubaty CEO of Eolian. “Texas and the Padua Complex demonstrate how building battery energy storage at this speed and scale to meet urgent market needs and to better use the existing transmission network will act as a vital bridge between now and 2030, buying time to allow other technologies to scale and ramp up production and deployment while enabling continued load growth.”
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