Iberdrola moves forward with its largest battery storage system

Today, Ingeteam said that Scottish Power Renewables, Iberdrola’s subsidiary in the UK,  awarded it a contract to supply equipment for Iberdrola’s biggest ever lithium-ion battery storage system. The project will provide back-up for the UK’s biggest on-shore wind farm, the 539-MW Whitelee wind farm near Glasgow.

The
storage capacity of the Ingeteam system will be 50 million watt-hours (50 MWh),
equivalent to the average hourly power consumption of 150,000 homes.

Ingeteam
will supply the control system, the power converters and the batteries. The
facility is intended mainly to expand the wind farm’s ability to manage the
energy delivered to the grid at all times and with it, Iberdrola will be able
to take part in the UK national grid frequency regulation market. It will also
enable the wind farm to be commissioned with its grid powered down and isolated
from the main grid.  

The
plant is expected to come online at the end of this year, with testing to
ensure compliance with TSO grid code (UK electric system operator) due to be completed
in the first quarter of 2021.

The
control systems and power converters covered by this agreement will be based on
the Ingeteam Group’s own in-house technology, and the order will be placed with
the newly opened plant in Ortuella (Bizkaia).

The
system to be supplied by Ingeteam is similar to a laptop battery, though a
million times bigger, said the company.

The
control system and power converters ensure that the battery charges and
discharges properly. During troughs in demand for power from households and
industry the wind farm can continue producing electricity at peak capacity, and
the surplus clean energy generated can be stored in the battery. When energy
demand exceeds clean generation capacity in existing wind conditions, the plant
can make up the shortfall by feeding in energy from its batteries to supplement
that produced by the turbines.