A battery storage project developed by TagEnergy is now connected and energised on the electricity transmission network, following work by National Grid to plug the facility into its 132kV Drax substation in North Yorkshire.
Works included extending the busbars – which enable power flows from generation source on to power lines – upgrading busbar protection and substation control systems, and installing an operational tripping scheme, all of which helps keep the network stable and operating securely.
Owned and operated by TagEnergy – with Tesla, Habitat Energy and RES as project partners – the newly-connected battery will help exploit the clean electricity potential of renewable projects in the region, storing and releasing green energy to power homes and businesses and also helping to relieve any system constraints.
National Grid''s adjacent Drax 400kV substation already hosts the connection for Drax power station – the UK''s largest biomass facility – and will also connect the Eastern Green Link 2 electrical superhighway when it starts importing clean energy from Scotland in 2029.
Mark Brindley, portfolio director for northern regions at National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET), said: "Battery storage technologies play an essential part in delivering a net zero energy system in Britain, so connecting Lakeside BESS to our transmission network is a key moment in the pursuit of those clean energy targets.
"Our Drax substation originally connected a coal plant in the seventies, and is now playing an important role in the energy transition – connecting not only the country''s biggest battery, but also its largest biomass power plant. As the transition progresses, connecting a diverse mix of renewable technologies will be crucial in supporting the UK''s bold net zero ambitions."
Franck Woitiez, chief executive officer at TagEnergy, said: "For a while, Lakeside will be the largest transmission connected BESS project in the UK and it is an important project that truly moves the needle for the energy transition.
"We''re proud to have delivered the project efficiently, energised and connected onto National Grid''s transmission network without significant delays or operating issues. That is exactly what is needed to speed the transition.
Grid-scale storage plays an important role in the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, providing important system services that range from short-term balancing and operating reserves, ancillary services for grid stability and deferment of investment in new transmission and distribution lines, to long-term energy storage and restoring grid operations following a blackout.
pumped-storage hydropower is the most widely used storage technology and it has significant additional potential in several regions. Batteries are the most scalable type of grid-scale storage and the market has seen strong growth in recent years. Other storage technologies include compressed air and gravity storage, but they play a comparatively small role in current power systems. Additionally, hydrogen – which is detailed separately – is an emerging technology that has potential for the seasonal storage of renewable energy.
The total installed capacity of pumped-storage hydropower stood at around 160 GW in 2021. Global capability was around 8 500 GWh in 2020, accounting for over 90% of total global electricity storage. The world''s largest capacity is found in the United States. The majority of plants in operation today are used to provide daily balancing.
The grid-scale battery technology mix in 2022 remained largely unchanged from 2021. Lithium-ion battery storage continued to be the most widely used, making up the majority of all new capacity installed.
The rapid scaling up of energy storage systems will be critical to address the hour‐to‐hour variability of wind and solar PV electricity generation on the grid, especially as their share of generation increases rapidly in the Net Zero Scenario. Meeting rising flexibility needs while decarbonising electricity generation is a central challenge for the power sector, so all sources of flexibility need to be tapped, including grid reinforcements, demand‐side response, grid-scale batteries and pumped-storage hydropower.
Grid-scale battery storage in particular needs to grow significantly. In the Net Zero Scenario, installed grid-scale battery storage capacity expands 35-fold between 2022 and 2030 to nearly 970 GW. Around 170 GW of capacity is added in 2030 alone, up from 11 GW in 2022. To get on track with the Net Zero Scenario, annual additions must pick up significantly, to an average of close to 120 GW per year over the 2023-2030 period.
Based on cost and energy density considerations, lithium iron phosphate batteries, a subset of lithium-ion batteries, are still the preferred choice for grid-scale storage. More energy-dense chemistries for lithium-ion batteries, such as nickel cobalt aluminium (NCA) and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), are popular for home energy storage and other applications where space is limited.
Besides lithium-ion batteries, flow batteries could emerge as a breakthrough technology for stationary storage as they do not show performance degradation for 25-30 years and are capable of being sized according to energy storage needs with limited investment. In July 2022 the world''s largest vanadium redox flow battery was commissioned in China, with a capacity of 100 MW and a storage volume of 400 MWh.
Moreover, the impacts of Russia''s invasion of Ukraine are also apparent in the battery metals market. Both cathode (nickel and cobalt) and anode (graphite) materials are affected. Russia is the largest producer of battery-grade Class 1 nickel, accounting for 20% of the world''s mined supply. It is also the second and fourth largest producer of cobalt and graphite respectively.
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