The UK is about to build its largest-ever grid-scale battery

Battery maker Invinity Energy Systems has been awarded £11 million ($13.7 million) by the British government to build the UK’s largest-ever grid-scale battery storage.

The grid-scale battery storage project will feature Invinity’s Vanadium Flow Battery technology, which provides long-duration, nondegrading energy storage and is ideal for the management of renewable energy systems. Invinity asserts that its battery technology will last for more than 25 years and is almost completely recyclable.

The 5MW/7.5MWh battery system will be able to store enough energy to power 2,500 homes for over two hours.

The grid-scale battery will be assembled in Scotland, at Invinity’s factory in Bathgate, West Lothian. Invinity, along with energy storage and infrastructure developer Pivot Power, will install the battery at the Hilltop Energy Centre in Cowdown, Hampshire.

The battery will be integrated with the existing power infrastructure and will provide crucial support to the National Grid during times of peak demand. The battery is expected to go live in 2025, and it will be the longest-duration battery asset to be connected to the UK grid. 

Julia Souder, CEO of the global nonprofit LDES Council, said: 

This investment is a clear signal from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero that long duration energy storage [LDES] will play a vital role in delivering a secure and affordable UK energy transition. 

The UK is already an LDES pioneer, with market conditions that provide a positive environment to support these new technologies to reach maturity at scale and pace, and deliver real impact this decade.

This investment could prove to be a pivotal moment for the UK’s energy grid, and we hope to see it have global ramifications, to stimulate more of this type of investment into LDES around the world. 

The UK is aiming to fully decarbonize the country’s electricity by 2035. Since 2021, the country has spent more than £390 million turning off its wind farms to manage grid curtailment during times of oversupply and used gas power plants to fill in supply shortages. So grid-scale battery storage provides a solution to these challenges.

Photo: Invinity Energy Systems

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