TWO flagship battery storage projects in Scotland will be the biggest systems of their type in Europe and will help the country on its journey to net zero.
Canadian renewable developer Amp Energy said the 800MW Scottish Green Battery Complex – split between Hunterston, Ayrshire and Kincardine, Fife – is expected to be operational in April 2024. It will comprise two 400MW battery arrays providing 800MWh of storage capacity.
The Ayrshire facility will be adjacent to the decommissioned Hunterston B nuclear power plant, while the other will be near the recently-demolished Kincardine coal-fired power station.
Amp will use its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital energy platform – Amp X – to optimise the transfer of power from the batteries to the National Grid, providing reliable grid stability and energy management across the central belt, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. Amp said that by storing and managing the distribution of renewable energy from Scottish wind farms, the projects will secure the electricity infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of transmission upgrades.
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The projects were announced after the ScotWind offshore seabed auction raised almost £700 million, and are expected to add 26GW of new renewable generation capacity. Over the coming years, Amp said its Scottish battery assets will enable up to 1750 GWh per year of additional renewable energy to be generated in Scotland and transported to other regions of the UK.
Ben Skinner, the company’s vice president of global markets, said: “With these groundbreaking projects, Amp is investing heavily in much-needed green infrastructure and the UK is moving to a fully carbon neutral grid.
“Our projects not only support the growth of renewable power generation in Scotland, but also offer consumers an alternative to costly transmission upgrades.”
The Amp X technology works autonomously, offering solutions for grid bottlenecks, flexibility and enabling the complete energy transition.
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“With our global scale and the breakthrough innovation we are deploying with our Amp X platform, we are at the forefront of the world’s energy transition,” said Paul Ezekiel, the Toronto-based company’s co-founder. “The deployment of green hydrogen and energy storage at a scale such as the Scottish Green Battery Complex is critical to our continued rapid growth and long-term strategy.”
The Scottish Government welcomed the investment in Scotland’s “net zero journey”, and a spokesperson added: “Delivering the decarbonisation we need to see across industry, heat and transport presents a huge opportunity to transform Scotland’s energy system.
“Ensuring that electricity supplies continue to grow while remaining secure and resilient will be critical for a reliable energy system that supports a just transition to net zero.
“New technologies like battery storage hydrogen and carbon capture will play an important role in delivering on this objective and supporting significant growth in renewables.”
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