A United Kingdom Power Networks substation has just become home to Europe’s largest battery storage facility with a 6MW / 10MWhr Smarter Network Storage (SNS) opening last week. The £18.7 million (roughly AU$35.9 million) project is said to save more the £6 million (AU$11.5 million) in traditional network reinforcement methods.

S&C Electric Europe, Samsung SDI and Younicos collaborated to launch the project.

“Energy storage can play a major role in balancing the grid as it solves the problem of renewable intermittency by absorbing surplus power and releasing it when needed. This function simultaneously helps to securely balance capacity and supply, and protects the grid from stress events (e.g. power outages),” says Andrew Jones, managing director, S&C Electric Europe. “The introduction of energy storage in substations like the one at Leighton Buzzard can decrease the need and cost of traditional reinforcement, such as transformers and cabling.”

The substation will be part of a two year trial to see how storage can help the UK’s Carbon Plan cost effectively.

“It’s exciting to start the two-year trial. We will be testing a wide range of different services that storage can deliver to the network, and the wider electricity system,” adds Ben Wilson, UK Power Networks’ director of strategy and regulation and chief financial officer. “The project will allow us to explore and improve the economics of electrical energy storage, and assess the potential benefits to the electricity system in a number of sustainable and flexible ways. We have also been developing a first-of-its-kind platform to help us optimise and manage a wide range of different services that the storage can provide.”

“This project will have an impact not only for the local area, but also nationally and internationally,” Wilson adds. “What we learn here from this exciting and important development will be vital for similar schemes in the future.”

Berlin-based Younicos contributed custom-built intelligent software architecture and components to the project. With their help the project will stabilise the grid more effectively than traditional thermal generators, providing more space on the grid for clean, but intermittent, renewable energies.

“This groundbreaking project forcefully demonstrates the many revenue streams and savings that energy storage can enable today,” says Clemens Triebel, co-founder and chief technical officer at Younicos. “We are particularly proud to have contributed our intelligent control software and experience in frequency regulation and battery management, which ensures that the battery system automatically reacts to price and other signals. Together with UKPN, S&C, and other partners, we are showing grid operators, utilities and other stakeholders both in the UK and around the world a cost-effective way to reinforce and improve grid infrastructure, while facilitating increased deployment of clean energy from wind and solar.”