Scotland is to be home to the three biggest battery energy storage systems in Europe after an infrastructure investment fund is investing £800 million to build two new batteries, which combined will have a total power capacity of 1.5 gigawatts.
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, the largest supplier of battery storage in the UK, announced on Wednesday that it will begin construction on the Coalburn 2 project, in South Lanarkshire, and the Devilla project in Fife.
Two new batteries are expected to come online in 2027-28 and will complement Coalburn 1, which is currently under construction and due to start operating in October. Each of the 500 megawatt batteries is bigger than any other in Europe, CIP reports.
Together, the three systems will be able to store and supply the power grid with 3GW/h of electricity, sufficient to serve approximately 4.5 million households for two hours.
First Minister John Swinney labelled the investment as “a substantial contribution to the advancement of Scotland’s energy shift infrastructure”.
“By helping to ensure a steady and secure supply of electricity for our homes and companies, well-sited storage systems… can bring us closer to achieving net zero and directly support the local communities near them,” he said.
"Was open for business," he added.
Renewable wind energy and grid infrastructure constraints. By 2030, roughly 60 per cent of UK energy will be produced by wind power, with 31 per cent of that generated in Scotland, according to CIP.
As the UK aims for a significantly reduced carbon footprint by 2030, the country is aiming for 27-30 GW of battery storage, up from the current operational 4.5 GW.
Battery energy storage systems, which can charge when electricity costs are low and discharge during periods when demand is at its highest, offer flexibility to the grid that enables a faster introduction of renewable energy.
This technology is essential for achieving a balance between the amount of power that needs to be used, and the amount that generating plants are able to provide when their forecasts do not meet requirements.
CIP, the world’s biggest fund manager focusing on greenfield renewable energy investments, is investing in over 30GW of renewable energy infrastructure in the UK, valued at more than £15 billion.
But such sites have raised opposition in some local communities due to safety concerns and noise pollution, with many criticising the industrialising of rural areas.
The Coalburn projects, situated next to existing onshore wind farms, are located on a former coal mine - "a symbolic example of new energy", said Gillian Martin, acting secretary for net zero and energy.
She cautioned that there had to be limits on battery storage, pointing out that the technology had to, as she put it, "coexist with the rest of Scotland as well".
“To ensure battery storage parks are correctly located and communities can see the benefits, we need to get them just right,” he added.
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