generated by its portfolio soar to £22.4 million (US$30.53 million) in the first half of this year, jumping from £4.5 million in H1 2020

With a project pipeline in excess of 14GW, a developing regulatory envelope and maturing revenue streams, the UK’s energy storage sector continues to be at the forefront globally. Molly Lempriere charts the market’s development to date and uncovers how it has responded to deployment barriers.

Industry voices in the UK have said that electricity market activity during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the network will become prohibitively expensive and possibly unmanageable without the further rapid deployment of energy storage.

Merchant energy storage has become an investable asset class in the UK, a provider of battery optimisation services has said, with the market moving away from an emphasis on contracted revenue streams for supplying grid services.

The UK energy storage sector is forging ahead after a landmark year in 2019 which saw maturing business models further the asset class’ role in the country’s energy system.

After reporting last week on the findings from EMMES, the European Market Monitor on Energy Storage from Delta-ee and trade association EASE, which demonstrated a big rise in installations by MWh in 2017 across the continent, we delved further behind another record-breaking year with the report’s lead author, Valts Grintals of Delta-ee.

EDF has completed one of the UK’s largest battery storage projects, bringing online the 49MW West Burton B project to provide Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) services to National Grid.

Ørsted, formerly DONG Energy, has confirmed its entry into the UK battery storage market with a new 20MW project near Liverpool.

The energy industry is evolving towards more ‘enterprise platform’-based business models, enabling energy storage to play a vital role for businesses and the grid, NEC Energy Solutions (NEC ES) CEO Steve Fludder has said.

A subsidiary of Enel is jointly developing a large-scale lithium-ion battery system project with wind power developer ENERTRAG, in what will be the multinational utility’s first energy storage project in Germany.