Europe’s biggest electricity storage battery using a 10MW lithium-ion battery array is being built in Northern Ireland (NI).
Plans to provide an extra 250MW of capacity – enough to power 160,000 homes – are in the advanced stages at a site next to Kilroot Power Station.
US based company AES, which operates the power station in Co Antrim, plans to install the li-ion battery array later this year, allowing renewable energy to be stored and cut the country’s electricity costs.
However, it is only the beginning of plans by AES as it looks to expand the plant 10-fold to create a 100MW battery array by 2017, delivering savings of £8.5m (almost $13million) a year in system operating costs.
It is a vital step in a plan to help NI reach its target of generating 40% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Carla Tully, President of AES UK and Ireland, said: “We are excited to install Europe’s largest battery to date and begin using advanced energy storage to reduce the cost and carbon intensity of managing the UK and Ireland’s electric grids.
“Instead of being able to feed that electricity into the grid when the winds die down, electricity operators have to fall back on costly electricity back-up supplies based on fossil fuels.”
She added: “It will be one of the biggest in the world and is expected to draw industry leaders who want to find out how Northern Ireland is solving its renewable energy problems.”
AES is currently working with the Northern Ireland System Operator to finalise details of the battery’s integration into the grid and is also working on a 100MW array for California.
Northern Ireland was chosen to pioneer the technology to make full use of its abundant wind resources and because of its openness to innovative solutions to renewable energy storage problems.
AES has eight years of experience with commercial energy storage, having implemented more than 200MW of advanced grid-scale lithium ion battery resources to improve systems around the world.
Once completed the new battery will be bigger than Europe’s current largest battery project, a 6MW/10MWh lithium-ion based ESS in Leighton Buzzard, England.
