US energy storage firm AES is to build a 100MW battery energy storage plant at Northern Ireland’s biggest power station.
AES plans to build the facility at the Kilroot 660MW coal/oil power plant in Carrickfegus. The company has submitted a connection application to System Operator Northern Ireland (SONI), which operates the electricity grid in Northern Ireland.
Depending on “a suitable commercial agreement”, AES could have the facility operational early in 2015.
“Leveraging existing AES infrastructure will allow us to rapidly deliver reliable, economical power resources,” John Zahurancik, vice president of AES’s energy-storage unit, said in a statement. “Storage arrays have the unique ability to participate as active power-system support with no emissions and to provide both supply and load to help manage the variability of renewables.”
