Yahoo Finance Europe’s biggest battery to be built on Teesside
The biggest battery storage system in Europe is to be built on Teesside in a boost for the UK’s bid to attract international green investment.
Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries is intending to create a 360MW lithium-ion battery facility at the Wilton International development site in Redcar.
The project will help Britain manage intermittent flows of renewable power by storing the excess to be released when there is less wind or sunshine.
Sembcorp already has a portfolio of batteries and generation in the UK, totaling about 1GW of installed capacity.
Costs for the project have not been disclosed and the company is still carrying out procurement, but a development of this sort would be expected to have a bill in the hundreds of millions of pounds.
Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, said the investment would “increase our region’s contribution to a greener future”.
Andy Koss, chief executive in the UK and Middle East for Sembcorp Industries, said: “Now, more than ever, flexible energy sources play an increasingly important role in maintaining secure and reliable energy supplies.
“With a growing reliance on renewables, the UK energy system needs to be flexible and able to respond quickly to changes.”
Batteries help balance electricity supplies by storing electricity when too much is being generated - for example, when it is too windy and demand is low - and dispatching it when it is needed.
Lithium-ion batteries generally do this over short periods rather than for days or weeks at a time, but this is still very important as the grid needs to be balanced constantly in order to avoid power cuts.
Sembcorp’s plant will be able to supply power to the grid in milliseconds, helping stabilise the system.
It will be much larger than a 100 megawatt project opened in Minety, Wiltshire in July, which was developed by UK company Penso Power with funding from China's state-owned Huaneng Group utility and CNIC Corporation.
Shell, the FTSE 100 oil and gas business, is running the Minety battery.
The UK is Europe's most active battery storage system market, according to an analysis in October by S&P Global Platts.
Penso Power is building out further projects, as are Pivot Power, owned by EDF, and Eeelpower.
Sembcorp said it has land and connections at Wilton to get the batteries up and running quickly, with the first tranche expected to be in action by 2023.
In July Sembcorp announced a deal with 8 Rivers Capital for the US infrastructure investors to use land at Wilton for a new low-emission power station.
The planned plant will use the emerging Allam-Fetvedt Cycle process, which uses high-pressure carbon dioxide released from burning natural gas to drive a power turbine, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.
The Government has backed the technology with more than £6m funding during development since 2012.
