It’s been a long time since the UK built any new pumped hydro capacity. Among new projects proposed, Coire Glas in Scotland could be pivotal, says Andy Sloan at consultancy COWI and John Ord from Stantec.
Anthony Price, one of the organisers of the annual International Flow Battery Forum and here discusses what was talked about at this year’s event — and how that fits in with the scaling up of energy storage we see around the world.
The pipeline for utility-scale battery storage in the UK has been continually increasing and is now over 20GW across more than 800 projects. A recent surge in submitted applications for battery storage has led to a record breaking quarterly submitted capacity for Q2’21.
Texas’ ERCOT market has been one of the US’ fastest-growing regions for renewable energy, but recent weather-driven events have made it clear that more needs to be done to ensure electricity system reliability. The answers are already here, affordable and practical, argues Wayne Muncaster, vice-president at commercial demand response platform technology group GridBeyond.
Hybrid renewables are playing a strategic role in accelerating the decarbonisation of power generation and supporting the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as supporting the UK’s net zero by 2050 ambition and its interim emissions reduction of 78% by 2035. Consultant Peter Lo of ITPEnergised discusses the UK’s emergence into the hybrid energy sector and how it is better for our planet, better in the economics and better for offtake.
Eagle Mountain is a large-scale pumped hydro energy storage project under development in California. It’s a win-win project, argues Jeff Harvey, a consultant with over 35 years experience in California and senior environmental scientist for developer NextEra Energy Resources.
A cross-border platform is being created in Europe for the provision of secondary reserve to maintain the grid’s operating frequency, which will be open to energy storage in the coming years. Tanguy Poirot, analyst, and Corentin Baschet, head of market analysis at energy storage specialist consultancy Clean Horizon take a deep dive.
The UK is undoubtedly one of the hottest global markets for battery storage today and a considerable pipeline of projects exists. Analyst Mollie McCorkindale from Solar Media Market Research explains some of the methodologies to filter out the top 10 projects in development.
