Spain’s FRV, part of Abdul Latif Jameel Energy, and the UK-based Harmony Energy have switched on a battery energy storage system (BESS). They claim that it is Europe’s largest BESS to date.
Work began in September 2021 on the Clay Tye site in Essex, England. It has a total capacity of 99 MW/198 MWh – enough power to supply energy to more than 300,000 UK homes for a period of two hours.
The facility features 52 Tesla Megapack lithium-ion batteries that are connected to the UK Power Networks distribution network, allowing the batteries to store energy from renewable sources and provide on-peak flexibility to the UK national grid.
“[The site] will contribute to future energy security, make energy bills more affordable, while supporting the decarbonisation of the grid,” said Harmony Energy CEO Peter Kavanagh.
FRV and Harmony Energy say their joint projects support the United Kingdom’s energy security goals and efforts to decarbonize. According to the UK government’s net zero initiative, England, Scotland, and Wales aim to decarbonize their electricity systems by 2035. Northern Ireland wants 80% of its electricity supply to be renewable by 2030.
In November 2022, Harmony Energy switched on a 98 MW/196 MWh storage system near Hull, East Yorkshire, in collaboration with Tesla.
Earlier this month, NatPower UK said it plans to invest more than GBP 10 billion ($12.7 billion) in the United Kingdom’s green energy market, including the nationwide deployment of battery energy storage projects.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.