The largest battery energy storage in Europe has opened in the UK. The project, which uses Tesla’s Megapack batteries, is located at Pillswood near Cottingham, East Yorkshire, and cost £75 million.
The energy storage center will help the UK advance its plans to transition from fossil to renewable energy sources.
Harmony Energy Income Trust Plc owns the project. It allows the national grid to optimize wind and solar farms and other renewable energy sources. Wind farms can reduce the time they need to remain switched off or curtailed due to imbalanced supply and demand or other network limitations.
The site lies next to the National Grid’s Creyke Beck substation, which will serve as a connection point for phases A and B of the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm.
The Pillswood project can store up to 196 MWh of electricity in a single cycle, or enough to power about 300,000 homes for two hours. Harmony Energy plans to develop more battery storage energy projects in the UK and already has nine projects with a total capacity of 500 MW/1 GWh.
Peter Kavanaugh, Harmony Energy’s CEO, said, “Battery energy storage systems are essential to unlocking the full potential of renewable energy in the UK, and we hope this particular one highlights Yorkshire as a leader in green energy solutions.”
Megapack projects have been popping up worldwide, including in California and Australia, and have a two-year-long waiting list.
