logoalt Hacker News

zeristoryesterday at 9:42 AM7 repliesview on HN

There was the largest one in Scotland a few months ago.

These are, dare I say it, the easy wins. Reusing the infrastructure from a demolished coal fired power station.

However I have yet to see Battery storage feature in the charts for UK energy usage yet.

I’m guessing that there are a lot of similar such sets that are being, or could be repurposed for battery storage.


Replies

WJWyesterday at 10:26 AM

We had an interesting case here in the Netherlands, where at the moment the biggest problem for big battery operations is to get sufficient grid transmission capacity. One clever company bought the site of a bankrupt aluminium smelter for cents on the euro, purely because said smelter had a direct high capacity connection to the national high voltage grid. Getting the rest of the site and the machinery was just a bonus.

show 1 reply
blitzaryesterday at 10:44 AM

> However I have yet to see Battery storage feature in the charts for UK energy usage yet.

There are also four pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations providing a further 2.8 GW of installed electrical generating capacity, and contributing up to 4,075 GWh of peak demand electricity annually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United...

ZeroGravitasyesterday at 10:22 AM

On one of the sources of grid usage it has a placeholder for batteries but says:

> Several battery storage systems are in operation in Great Britain, but full reporting is not yet available: reports include discharging but not charging. As this would lead to double counting, with power being reported both when originally generated and when discharged from battery storage systems, battery storage data is not yet shown on this site.

show 1 reply
arethuzayesterday at 10:26 AM

Probably this one: https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-...

Very much aimed at storing surplus from a couple of wind farms in the Moray Firth.

Presumably we'll see a lot more of these given the scale of some of the new windfarms...

show 1 reply
femtoyesterday at 11:00 AM

> However I have yet to see Battery storage feature in the charts for UK energy usage yet.

Grid connected batteries are more about aiding grid stability, filling short term mismatches between loads and renewable generators, rather than raw capacity in terms of kWh.

jacquesmyesterday at 11:03 AM

It will be a long time before you will. That's just not the best application right now.