Flexitricity begins operations of UK’s largest battery

Flexible energy specialist Flexitricity and Gresham House Energy Storage Fund have announced that the UK’s largest battery is now live and will help National Grid ESO balance power supply and demand.

Located in Thurcroft, South Yorkshire, the Gresham House 50MW/75MWh battery is optimised by Flexitricity.

Flexitricity said that the battery went live in the Balancing Mechanism (BM) Reserve from Storage Trial and was then live in the tool immediately later on.

BM is a tool used by the National Grid ESO to balance supply and demand on the electricity system in real-time.

The company will be constantly monitoring the BM tool from its 24/7 control room, and remotely alter the charge and discharge profile of the Thurcroft battery.

Flexitricity director Andy Lowe said: “Flexibility is a hugely important part of decarbonising the grid and batteries are an excellent source of flexibility.

“Investors are getting comfortable with the business case for energy storage and it’s great this year to be seeing a number of large batteries coming onto the system, providing more of the rapid response flexibility National Grid ESO needs to maintain system stability.”

Going forward, the project will also focus on the option of trading the battery in the wholesale markets and tender for frequency response services to help the country in meeting its energy needs, while optimising the revenue for the site.

Gresham House managing director Ben Guest said: “We have plans to grow our energy storage portfolio, aiming for over 350MW in operational assets by the end of 2020. Great Britain needs at least 10GW in the next few years to enable the orderly transition to a renewables-led electricity market.”