The UK’s energy storage sector took “a great step forward” after completing what is thought to be the world’s first grid-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) plant at the Pilsworth landfill gas site in Bury, near Manchester, the two companies involved have said.

South Somerset District Council in the south west of England will pay for, and build, its own 25MW battery energy storage facility.

The UK government’s head of smart energy has admitted that Brexit – Britain’s planned departure from the European Union – is causing delays in the passage of primary legislation to define energy storage, which may not be achieved until 2022.

A proposed network of high speed electric vehicle chargers and large-scale batteries connected directly to the UK’s transmission network has been unveiled to offer a new business model to the country’s energy storage market.

Vattenfall has brought online its 22MW battery project co-located with the Pen y Cymoedd onshore wind farm in Wales, becoming the latest company to start delivering sub-second frequency response to National Grid in the UK.

UK-based energy supplier OVO Energy has launched a suite of “revolutionary” products under its proprietary digital intelligence platform, including what has been called the world’s first widely available domestic vehicle to grid (V2G) charger.

Ofgem is to consider Scottish Power’s proposal to create demand side response (DSR) technology classes intended to apply new de-rating factors to energy storage used as part of DSR bids into the Capacity Market in 2019.

Eelpower, a UK-based developer which has executed renewables and cleantech projects including hydroelectric-plus-storage, has secured a £20 million (US$28.5 million) investment from investment trust Gravis Capital Management to build out its pipeline of permitted energy storage sites and pursue new development opportunities.

British vertically-integrated utility Scottish Power has come under scrutiny from the demand side response (DSR) sector after proposing to national regulator Ofgem that de-rating factors applied to large scale battery storage should be extended to those used to provide DSR in the Capacity Market.

EDF has set its sights on becoming a European leader in energy storage after announcing plans to invest €8 billion (~£7 billion) in deploying 10GW of new projects by 2035.