IN Brief:
- Aypa Power and Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation have closed about C$700 million for two Ontario BESS projects.
- Elora and Hedley will deliver 422 MW / 1,688 MWh under contracts awarded through the IESO’s LT1 procurement.
- The financing adds momentum to Ontario’s storage build-out as the province procures flexible capacity for a tighter and more electrified grid.
Aypa Power and Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation have reached financial close on roughly C$700 million for the Elora and Hedley battery energy storage system projects in Ontario, giving two of the province’s contracted storage assets the capital needed to move into execution.
The financing package, equivalent to about US$512 million, was arranged through an eight-bank syndicate and includes construction-to-term loan facilities, investment tax credit bridge loans, and letters of credit. Together, the two projects will provide 422 MW / 1,688 MWh of storage capacity, with commercial operations scheduled for mid-2027.
Both assets were selected in the Independent Electricity System Operator’s Long-Term 1 procurement, which is now a central reference point for Ontario’s next wave of flexible capacity. The LT1 process concluded with 13 selected proponents and 2,194.91 MW of new capacity, including 1,784 MW from electricity storage, reflecting how firmly batteries have moved into the province’s reliability toolkit.
Elora is located in Centre Wellington Township and Hedley in Haldimand County. Alongside the financing milestone, the structure of the projects also reflects another feature of the Ontario market: growing Indigenous participation and equity ownership in major electricity infrastructure. The IESO has pointed to that participation as one of the defining characteristics of LT1’s final results.
For Aypa, the close strengthens its position in one of North America’s busiest storage markets. For Ontario, it is another sign that battery projects are shifting from award announcements into financed delivery, which is where procurement ambition starts to translate into system flexibility on the ground.
