Scotland has officially opened Europe’s largest battery storage facility at Blackhillock, located near Keith. This new installation boasts the capability to deliver up to 200MW of electricity and store 400MWh of energy.
The facility draws charging current from both offshore and onshore wind turbines. Zenobē, the company operating Blackhillock, plans to expand its capacity to 300MW and 600MWh by 2026. This expansion will enable the site to store enough energy to power 3.1 million homes for two hours.
Previously, the title of the largest battery storage facility in Europe belonged to a project in Pillswood, England, which has a capacity of 98MW/196MWh. Unlike Pillswood, Blackhillock uses technology from Finnish firm Wärtsilä, which supplies both the batteries and the software for operations.
Zenobē claims that the Blackhillock facility will save consumers over £170 million on electricity bills over the next 15 years. Additionally, it is expected to prevent the emission of 2.6 million tons of CO2 during the same period.
The facility will provide energy to major cities including Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Transmission lines from Blackhillock also extend into England.
Zenobē operates another battery storage facility at Wishaw, near Glasgow, with a capacity of 50MW/100MWh. The company aims to develop a total of 1.9GWh of battery storage across several new sites in Scotland.
As the UK aims for a significant increase in renewable energy supply by 2030, the need for battery storage is becoming increasingly critical. Current battery supply is insufficient to meet projected demands, highlighting the importance of facilities like Blackhillock in the transition to clean energy.
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