Eolian’s proven and enviable track record is evidenced by the successful funding and development of nearly 30 GW of operating or under-construction energy storage, solar, and wind generating capacity throughout the country. Eolian currently operates a growing portfolio of wholly-owned utility-scale battery energy storage projects, and was an early innovator in the development of GW-scale co-located gen+load datacenter and industrial project sites across the US.
What we do
Since 2005, Eolian has been an innovative investor in energy projects, including the invention of the renewable energy royalty structure that has now become an industry standard. In contrast to many firms that raise capital with short-term buy and sell strategies, Eolian and its partners have long-term views of 30+ years. This allows for a unique perspective on energy investing and an alignment with the long-term generation planning perspective of utilities, independent power producers and power market operators.
Why Texas’s ‘cut-throat’ approach to net zero is paying off
July 27, 2025
By Melissa Lawford
Bobby Helmers used to be an oilman.
For years, he worked leasing land for petroleum companies and at one point had as many as nine oil wells on his ranch in West Texas.
But those wells have long been plugged up.
“It’s not that I was dissatisfied with the oil,” says Helmers. “It’s just that production was depleting. They became no longer economically feasible.”
Now, instead, the 84-year-old Trump voter has six wind turbines spinning on his ranch.
Standing 300ft high, they make up the north-eastern end of a 76-turbine farm that stretches into the distance and is owned by French utilities company Engie, which pays Helmers handsomely for the privilege.
“If you’re talking about bottom-line dollars, the wind turbines make more for the ranch than the cattle do,” says Helmers. “They’re a blessing.”
His shift to renewables may seem surprising, especially given that he lives in the largest oil-producing state in the largest oil-producing country in the world.
But the free-market, Republican region has also now become far and away America’s biggest generator of renewable energy, as well as producing nearly 43pc of all US crude.
Last year, the state generated 124,934 gigawatt hours of wind energy, enough to power 11.6 million homes and nearly three times the second-largest wind-producing state.
Behind California, it is also America’s second-largest producer of solar power, but it is catching up rapidly.
Between 2020 and 2024, California’s solar output jumped by 67pc. In Texas, the increase was 338pc.
Its wind and solar output combined is nearly double the Golden State’s, and so far this year nearly half of Texas’s electricity was powered by clean energy.
The numbers are testament not to government mandates but to what is the most aggressively competitive electricity market in America.
Texas has its own grid, a granular, location-based pricing system and no utility monopolies.
The result is an abundance of clean, cheap power fuelling strong economic growth in Texas, with many Republicans supportive of the shift away from oil.
However, their backing is now being put to the test as Donald Trump wages war on America’s clean energy sector.
After returning to the White House with a promise to “drill, baby, drill”, the US president has dismissed wind farms as “junk” and referred to them dismissively as “windmills”.
He is now planning to fund his “big, beautiful bill” by gutting America’s green energy industry, stripping away credits to fund a barrage of tax cuts.
Economists predict the move will cost Texas more than $50bn (£37bn) in lost economic growth over a decade, putting the president on a collision course with some of his core supporters.
“Renewable energy is so important to rural Texas,” says John Davis, another rancher and a former member of the Texas House of Representatives.
“And these are Republican voters. They’re alienating their own base. They’re going against their very own voters.”
Battery Makers in Slumping EV Business Find Lifeline Elsewhere
Companies pursuing new market in energy-storage systems
July 21, 2025 7:00 am ET
By Christopher Otts
Big U.S. EV battery makers are stepping back from the market that got them started and betting on a new set of customers in an entirely different business.
Instead of carmakers, these companies have started making batteries for utilities, wind- and solar-power developers, and massive data centers that train artificial intelligence.
Selling large, stationary batteries for “energy storage systems,” or ESS, used to be a niche market that wasn’t worth much attention, said Jaehong Park, an executive at the battery arm of South Korean conglomerate LG.
“ESS was the ugly duckling for a long time within our organization,” Park said.
Five years ago, automakers and battery companies raced to build multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle battery plants across the U.S. South and Midwest, based on EV forecasts that proved too optimistic. Now, many of these plants are underused, delayed or stuck in limbo. Energy storage has emerged as an alternative, helping to compensate for the slowdown in electric vehicles.
Tesla generates billions of sales from batteries for energy storage. Revenue from the storage segment, which also includes solar panels, grew 67% last year to $4 billion, partially offsetting a $6 billion fall in revenue from EV sales.
Some of Tesla’s biggest customers for its Megapack battery systems are utility-scale energy providers such as Intersect, as well as Tesla chief Elon Musk’s separate AI company, xAI. xAI purchased $191 million of Tesla Megapack products in 2024, according to financial disclosures. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, General Motors said it was exploring an arrangement to supply energy-storage batteries to Redwood Materials, a startup company focused on battery recycling. Under the proposed deal, GM would supply Redwood with a mix of new and used GM batteries for large battery-storage systems.
“Right now, there is a hunger for more energy from every source,” Redwood founder J.B. Straubel said.
Other battery makers are also pivoting. A Chinese-owned battery manufacturer that had planned to supply Mercedes-Benz is now considering energy storage to help get a stalled factory in Kentucky back on track.
This shift is in response to a turn in U.S. electricity demand, which is growing again after about 15 years of stagnating. Several factors driving that growth are artificial-intelligence data centers, manufacturing and broader electrification.
Energy-storage systems can help offset power outages and manage this extra demand on the power grid. Installations of energy-storage batteries more than tripled in the U.S. from 2021 to 2024 and are projected to grow 34% in 2025, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
“If you have an outage of a massive data center or a giant gas plant, batteries can plug that hole,” said Stephanie Smith, chief operating officer of Eolian, a battery and renewable-energy company owned by asset manager BlackRock. “They can react in microseconds, and so you’re able to address so many different problems on the entire grid.”
China has dominated the energy-storage battery market. Chinese manufacturers have spent decades honing the low-cost chemistry that works best for stationary batteries, said Sam Adham, a battery expert at CRU, a market-research firm. Even with the Trump administration’s ratcheting of tariffs on Chinese imports, China is still often the lowest-cost option for storage batteries, he said.
Financially Backed by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), part of BlackRock
Eolian, L.P. is a portfolio company of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), part of BlackRock, a leading infrastructure investor that specializes in investing in, owning and operating some of the largest and most complex assets across the energy, transport, digital infrastructure and water and waste management sectors. GIP has grown to be one of the world’s largest infrastructure investors and currently manages $170 billion in assets on behalf of its global investor base. The companies in GIP’s equity portfolios have combined annual revenues of $71 billion and employ approximately 116,000 people. Visit https://www.global-infra.com/ to learn more.
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