It was a busy week of news in the UK’s grid-scale energy storage market last week, with BESS projects put into operation by Eku Energy and Harmony Energy Income Trust (HEIT), and projects in the gigawatt-hour scale announced by ESB and Apatura in Scotland.
Apatura gets planning consent for Scotland’s largest standalone BESS
Energy storage developer Apatura has gained planning approval for a 700MW battery energy storage system (BESS) in Inverclyde, Scotland, UK.
Once completed, the Aunchetiber BESS will be Scotland’s largest standalone BESS, while also marking the largest project Apatura has received approval for across its 10GW pipeline.
The BESS will be situated on around 16.39 hectares of land near Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, with permission secured for the construction of 240 BESS units, 140 BESS transformers, 280 BESS inveters, three 33kV switchrooms, a 400kV control building, and a 400kV to 33kV transformer compound.
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Invercylde Council’s Energy Consents Unit approved the permission on 11 September, with no objections lodged by the council in the process. The Decision Letter from the approval praises Apatura for its good practice community engagement. A community benefit fund will be created as part of the development process, and two species of native trees will be planted on site to boost biodiversity.
ESB Scotland signs LOI for over 1.5GW of BESS units
ESB Scotland has signed letters of intent (LOIs) with system integrator American Energy Storage Innovations (AESI) cto provide BESS technology for three projects currently in development.
At the RE+ clean energy conference in Anaheim, California, it was announced that AESI will provide over 1.5GW worth of its TeraStor BESS units for the High Nether Faul Farm BESS project, and the Gretna and Harker substation projects.
The High Nether Faul Farm project, located in Lanarkshire, Scotland, is the largest planned installation of the three, with plans to host 1GW/2GWh of BESS capacity in the form of 312 TeraStor units, with a planned commissioning date of Q4 2028.
Meanwhile, the Gretna Substation project involves the installation of 500MW/1GWh of BESS across 156 units, with a planned commissioning date of Q4 2030, while the Harker Substation Project, also set for commissioning in Q4 2030, will see the installation of 371MW/742MWh across 116 units.
The three projects combined total nearly 1.9GW in power and 4GWh in capacity (AESI’s announcement simply described the order as ‘more than 1.5GW’ of systems).
Eku commissions first UK project
BESS developer and operator Eku Energy has announced the successful commissioning of its Maldon BESS, its first UK project to reach commercial operation.
Located in Essex, just outside London, the Maldon BESS project boasts a 40MW/40MWh capacity. The development was constructed by Trina Storage, which will service and maintain the project for its operational lifespan. Additionally, the project has successfully secured a long-term capacity market contract, traded by EDF.
“The Maldon battery energy storage system is Eku Energy’s first project to reach commercial operation in the United Kingdom, and we are excited to be delivering critical energy storage capability to the UK network,” said Daniel Burrows, CEO of Eku Energy.
Harmony Energy Income Trust energises 82.9MW of BESS
Harmony Energy Income Trust (HEIT) has today (12 September) announced that it has energised two major UK battery energy storage systems (BESS).
The BESS investment firm has successfully energised its Hawthorn Pit and Wormald Green projects, and both are expected to become fully operational in the coming weeks.
The 49.9MW/99.8MWh Hawthorn Pit project is located in County Durham, while the 33MW/66MWh Wormald Green project is situated in Yorkshire. Both of these projects use two-hour duration liquid-cooled energy storage systems supplied by Envision Energy, with this energisation marking Envision Energy’s first operation batteries in Britain.
These projects are HEIT’s seventh and eighth to be energised, and their energisation means that the company’s entire 395.4MW/790.8MWh portfolio is now operational.
Varco Energy and Arenco extend optimisation agreement
Varco Energy, a UK-based battery storage asset owner, has expanded its initial trading services relationship with technology provider Arenko.
The two have agreed an asset management software deal that sees Varco purchase Arenko’s Nimbus Performance product across its portfolio of three long-duration storage projects (LDES) with nearly 160MW/377MWh combined capacity.
The software solution provides asset owners comprehensive data insights across diversified and complex asset portfolios. The storage assets will integrate onto Nimbus as they energise, with the AI-driven software platform providing Varco with automated asset management.
Arenko will trade Varco’s battery storage assets in the energy market as well as provide performance insights and alerting and reporting capabilities.
These articles were originally published on our sister sites Solar Power Portal and Current, see the originals using these links:
Apatura lands planning approval for Scotland’s largest standalone BESS
ESB Scotland signs letters of intent for 1.5GW of BESS units
Eku Energy commissions first UK BESS
Harmony Energy Income Trust energises 82.9MW of BESS capacity
Arenko signs asset management software deal with Varco Energy
