Scotland’s first utility-scale battery storage facility has been officially opened today, having begun delivering sub-second balancing services to National Grid at the end of June under a bespoke agreement secured before the hotly contested Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) auction of 2016.
The 20MW Broxburn Energy Storage facility was built by RES, which had sold the project to The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) in August last year for £20 million. It was the first project to have been acquired by TRIG and RES’ fourth in the UK, with the company now managing the site.
Richard Crawford, director of infrastructure at TRIG’s investment manager InfraRed Capital Partners, said it was “an exciting day for the company” to see its first battery storage project completed.
Testing of the project, which uses batteries from Samsung SDI, commenced in May, enabling battery commissioning to be completed. This was followed by final testing under the EPC construction contract, which completed on 30 June when the battery began to deliver its contracted service to National Grid.
Read more: Energy Storage News