Scotland and Wales place hopes in battery power

(EurActiv, 11 Jun 2019) Scotland and Wales plan to embrace battery power in order to solve their respective clean energy and employment challenges. Scotland will link a 50MW “super battery” to a wind farm, while Wales wants to invest in battery production.

Renewable energy is mostly carbon-free but can be intermittent when sourced from the sun and wind. That is why power providers are turning more and more to large-scale batteries to store clean energy for when it is needed.

The Scottish government is a fan of the idea and this week approved the construction of a massive grid battery, larger than a tennis court, that will be hooked up to an onshore wind farm that already has 215 turbines.

When built, the battery will have double the capacity of any existing storage project in the UK. Its size means it will take an hour to fully charge and estimates say it will be able to power more than 800 electric cars to cover their full range.

Work is expected to begin this year and to be completed by the end of 2020.

“We know that renewable energy generation needs to quadruple and we know that onshore wind is the cheapest form of green energy,” said Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson.

“By integrating storage technologies with onshore wind, we are blowing away one of the myths about renewable generation not being available when you need it.”

External link

EurActiv, 11 Jun 2019: Scotland and Wales place hopes in battery power