At 4:52pm on Friday 9 August 2019, the UK suffered its first wide-scale blackout in more than a decade. More than 1.1 million consumers were plunged into the dark as rail lines screeched to a halt, traffic lights failed and even airports reported problems. Liam Stoker looks at the root causes, and how battery storage came to the rescue.
Energy-Storage.news was delighted to be asked to moderate a session in which participants and pioneers of UK energy storage – and solar – gave their perspectives on everything from the right technologies and what they can do, how financiers view the market today, to how we can all join together to create a modern, clean and sustainable energy sector.
Officially inaugurated a few weeks ago in Slovenia, the first Tesla Powerpack installation in the Balkans took just a few months from April to August to construct, the company behind the project has said.
60MW of energy storage developed by Fluence and Sembcorp Energy UK has come online, lauded as one of the largest transacted fleets of its kind in Europe.
UK liquid air energy storage (LAES) start-up Highview Power said its first ever 250MWh ‘Cryobattery’ installation will be placed at the site of a decommissioned thermal power plant in the North of England and could be Europe’s largest ‘battery’ system when completed.
The rapid acceleration in energy storage deployment expected over the coming years will require innovation in the quality and safety standards underpinning new battery and associated technologies. VDE’s Jan Geder looks at the technical work underway to ensure the coming storage boom has firm bankability and insurability foundations.
The Nobel Foundation recognised not only the role of lightweight, portable battery technology for mobile phones, laptops and latterly electric vehicles, but also that it “can also store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making possible a fossil fuel-free society”.
Batteries are increasingly widely used in grid balancing, but there are many more applications where a battery can play an important role. With electric grids requiring periodic maintenance, batteries can stand in for the grid during downtime in order to reduce the impact on industry and households, writes Dieter Castelein.
