UK solar firm Hive partners CellCube, Immersa for flow battery development

By Liam Stoker
LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

Hive Energy, a UK-based utility-scale solar developer, has entered into a consortium with vanadium redox flow battery manufacturer CellCube and Immersa to jointly build solar-plus-storage projects in the UK.

And the trio already has its first project in the works, expected to complete later this year.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

HICC Energy, as the consortium has been billed, was founded last week and will look to bring a portfolio of projects to market utilising third-party project financing.

The trio cited new opportunities for long duration batteries created by the derating methodologies adopted by grid operators in the UK when factoring their capabilities in markets like the country’s Capacity Market.

Those derating factors have been designed to reflect any given project’s capability to respond to energy system stress events over the course of four hours, meaning that projects with longer durations than more prevalent lithium-ion technologies are better reward.

Hive, Immersa and CellCube said those market developments meant that combining solar with long duration storage technologies to be the “most competitive and commercially attractive solution” under current UK regulations.

While Hive will be responsible for the development of grid-connected solar farms under the partnership, Immersa will work on the deployment of CellCube’s vanadium redox flow technology.

Hugh Brennan, managing director at Hive Energy, said the advent of long duration storage becoming available at cost-competitive prices allowed it to offer a “reliable renewable energy supply to the market”.

“Predictable power generation not only offer services at an attractive price to the balancing market but can also enter the short term operating reserve or STOR market which allows access to sources of extra power,” Robert Miles, chief executive at Immersa, added.

Read Next

May 1, 2025
UK power generation firm Drax will not bid its Cruachan II pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project into the LDES cap and floor scheme, saying that costs have risen while ‘recoverability of capital’ is unclear.
May 1, 2025
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) will divest a 50% ownership stake in its 500MW Coalburn 1 BESS to alternative investor AXA IM Alts.
Premium
April 30, 2025
Leading BESS owner-operators in the UK have signalled their opposition to the government’s cap and floor support scheme for long-duration energy storage (LDES) in an open letter. We spoke to one its signatories James Basden, founder of Zenobē, about why.
April 24, 2025
3.56GW of solar PV, wind generation and BESS have been selected to connect to the South West REZ in New South Wales, Australia.
April 17, 2025
US non-lithium battery technology companies Eos Energy Enterprises and Unigrid have announced partnerships to deploy their tech abroad, striking deals in the UK and India respectively.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter