The European electricity storage market has seen an impressive growth over the past two years. Whereas in 2015 some 300MWh of battery storage capacity was newly installed, just two years later in 2017, more than 700MWh was added. Delta-ee’s Valts Grintals gives you some highlights and pinpoints some recent trends across the continent.
Four projects have been awarded £42 million (US$59.6 million) of UK government money between them to conduct research aimed at overcoming battery challenges, mainly focused on electric vehicles.
ADS-TEC has just completed and connected a 2.5MW energy storage system in Germany, designed to smooth the variable output of wind power generation, while RES Group has just been awarded a 10MW energy storage project contract in the same country.
Keele University, which is near the border between Wales and England, is to become a living laboratory for emerging low carbon and smart energy technologies in what is thought to be the largest scheme of its type in Europe and North America.
Centrica, one of Britain’s so-called ‘Big Six’ energy suppliers, has received planning permission for a brace of battery energy storage units at its UK headquarters in Windsor with a combined capacity of 1MW set to be built at the site.
The real-world performance of batteries paired with “Hywind” – the world’s first floating wind farm – will be analysed by the wind project’s owners, Masdar and Statoil.
Flow batteries will take another major step towards widespread bankability with Lockheed Martin Energy launching its own system before the end of the year.
Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS) an independent system solutions and flexibility services provider, has taken in more than US$100 million in outside investment since November, with plans to target 100MW of UK projects.
Northern Ireland’s Queens University Belfast (QUB) has found that battery-based energy storage can provide inertial response for system reliability much more efficiently, at a lower cost and with substantially reduced emissions than thermal generation. Dr Marek Kubic at Fluence, which is working with QUB, explains.
