Nearly 15GW of battery storage in UK’s project development pipeline

April 20, 2021
LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email
Projects larger than 30MW are increasingly dominating market share. Image: Solar Media Market Research.

The UK reached a gigawatt of battery storage deployments in the second quarter of 2020 and the industry has 14.9GW in its development pipeline including 1.8GW of ready-to-build projects and 6.9GW with planning approvals in place.

Mollie McCorkindale, an analyst at Solar Media Market Research writes in an exclusive blog for our sister site Solar Power Portal today that although deployment during 2020 was lower than expected due to construction delays, the milestone 1GW mark was surpassed and total capacity is now close to 1.3GW.

The UK market saw a rush of projects built as deployment began in earnest from 2017, kick started by the transmission operator National Grid’s 200MW auction for the enhanced frequency response ancillary service that it introduced in 2016. After a peak in 2018 and a slowdown in 2019 as the market moved increasingly towards merchant revenue business models, the next 12-18 months could see that 1.8GW of ready-to-build projects commissioned.

Mollie’s blog offers a taster of a webinar Solar Media Market Research is hosting on Thursday 22 April 2021 to discuss industry trends in more detail. It is based on findings from our in-house experts’ ‘UK battery storage project database report’ and the webinar will cover aspects of the market such as the growing average size of projects and the rise of projects co-located with renewable generation.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Try Premium for just $1

  • Full premium access for the first month at only $1
  • Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
  • Cancel anytime during the trial period

Premium Benefits

  • Expert industry analysis and interviews
  • Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
  • Exclusive event discounts

Or get the full Premium subscription right away

Or continue reading this article for free

Read Next

January 6, 2026
It’s our first week back to normal service so here’s a roundup of the past few weeks of BESS action in Europe, with projects moving forward in Romania, Denmark, UK, France, Spain, Albania, Germany and Austria.
December 17, 2025
It’s been a busy few weeks in the run-up to Christmas in Europe’s BESS project space, with M&A, final investment decisions (FID) and supplier deals in Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Romania and the UK totally around 800MW of capacity.
December 15, 2025
A new battery energy storage system (BESS) cybersecurity whitepaper from consultancy firm The Brattle Group and cybersecurity solutions provider Dragos claims that a single 100MW/400MWh BESS outage could result in US$1.2 million in monthly losses.
Premium
December 10, 2025
Last month was the first time since June that both pre-application submissions and full planning consent submissions for grid-scale UK BESS surpassed 1GWh – just before NESO announced the results of its grid connection queue reshuffle.
December 9, 2025
The UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) will offer grid connection offers up to 2035 to 283GW of projects following a reform of the process.