A local authority in England has unveiled two landmark solar-plus-storage projects on existing landfill sites which aim to be the first of their kind in the UK.
The UK’s second subsidy-free solar farm, and the first by a local authority using battery storage, has been completed by West Sussex County Council in a project that ticked “every box” and will generate significant income over the next 25 years.
Battery assets have been used in the UK’s Balancing Mechanism for the first time via a virtual power plant, marking the start of what could be a new era for energy storage business models in Britain.
Cleve Hill Solar Park, the joint venture (JV) of Hive Energy and Wirsol intending to develop a 350MW+ solar farm on the Kent coast of England, has yet to make any decisions regarding the battery storage element of its plans, contrary to media reports.
The first solar-plus-storage microgrid in Asia to use Tesla’s Powerpack energy storage system is designed to end power reliability issues for a Philippines community, long used to losing light and productivity to brownouts.
Developer INRG Solar is plotting a 120MW solar array near Scunthorpe, northern England, in what could be the country’s second proposed solar farm of “significant infrastructure” status.
German renewables company Wirsol has tabled plans for two subsidy-free ground-mounted solar parks in the UK, for which energy storage is expected to be included in “phase two of the build-out”.
Battery storage technology costs will have to fall by a further 30% before projects in the UK are feasible without lucrative frequency response revenues, a leading investor has said.
UK-based renewables developer Anesco says the inclusion of battery storage has been central to the economic viability of the country’s first subsidy-free solar farm, a 10MW site the company has just unveiled in the east of England.
