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Centrica announced on Monday (7 January) that work on the battery facility had been completed
The company said the batteries will help to maintain the stability of the electricity system by providing frequency response services to National Grid. Construction started in March 2017 and took around 18 months to complete.
The plot was originally home to a coal-fired power station that was later replaced by the first combined-cycle gas turbine in Great Britain. The gas plant was mothballed in 2012 after Centrica cancelled plans to build a new biomass power station.
Centrica Business Solutions’ distributed power systems director Mark Futyan said: “The Roosecote site is truly unique, having been home to the latest technology of its time and is an exemplar of the transition we’ve made from dirty coal to cleaner, more flexible power.”
Meanwhile, Orsted has commissioned its first standalone battery project – a 20MW system in Liverpool – after acquiring the scheme from Shaw Energi in April.
Orsted’s UK managing director Matthew Wright said: “We have a vision to create a world that runs entirely on green energy, and that means we will need more than just clean energy generation.
“That’s why we’re investing in energy storage systems like Carnegie Road, to accelerate the transition to a smarter, low carbon grid.
“Batteries and other innovative storage technologies will form a critical part of an integrated green energy system required to ensure we keep the lights on without harming our planet.”
Orsted, like Centrica, said the batteries will support the power grid by providing frequency response services.
“The way we generate electricity is also changing as we add more low carbon sources from wind and solar to the grid,” Orsted’s onshore business unit lead Bridgit Hartland-Johnson added.
“These changes mean that the way we balance and operate the grid, also need to adapt to become more agile and flexible. The combination of storage and renewable energy means we can now deliver infrastructure that enhances grid operations and ultimately delivers much better value for us as consumers.”
The firm has previously installed a 2MW battery system alongside the Burbo Bank offshore windfarm.
Tom Grimwood
This article appeared first on edie’s sister title, Utility Week
Longannet, Didcot anyone?
Have to ask how long this facility can provide power for. 49MW sounds impressive but if it only lasts a couple of hours it doesn’t really mean much. If it can provide meaningful supply for days then that is something else.
Then of course you have to factor in how long it takes to recharge
The data provided leaves this item quite meaningless.
To quote only the mega-wattage of an installation is merely to make a statement about the amount power it can supply per second.
What is missing is a figure for the length of time for which that power can continue to be provided. Batteries, even big ones, run down and out. Without an indication of the number of hours for which power can be provided, the information is meaningless.
Mention is made of the function of the batteries to stabilise frequency. This is a light duty by comparison with the provision of industrial scale power. But this function is entirely beyond any battery installation when considered over the scale of five or more windless days, as occurred at the beginning of June last year.
Batteries are a business project promoted on the ignorance of the political world. As ever.
Richard Phillips
To report a 49MW battery construction, is to state its capability to deliver 49MW, but for how long?. A hour perhaps, one twentieth of a standard power station, for just one hour. Certainly useful frequency support for variable, unreliable renewable energy generation, but for supplying power to customers, meaningless.
Power stations capable of generating dispatchable power, the only type built before chaotic renewables, never needed any such support. It is only renewables that have spawned an avalanche of supportive devices, frequency and voltage controllers, phase correction, all very high power, solid state, and prices to match. Previously simply not required. and the customer pays. Un-itemised on the bill, for good reason.
Richard Phillips