10 ms·
UK's largest battery storage facility at Tilbury substation
- zeristor 1y agoThere 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.
- DamonHD 1y agoLots of good stuff in here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-power-2030-action-plan https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-power-2030-...
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoOn 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.
- DrScientist 1y agoConceptually it is no different from pumped hydro storage. - for that they simply use negative numbers for pumping and positive for release. I guess it's some technical problem with standardisation/tracking/reporting of the charging right now. As/if Vehicle-to-Grid becomes more widespread, where you have highly distributed battery storage, it will be interesting to see if this will be publicly tracked. Already domestic solar production is largely invisible ( as that mostly manifests in reduced demand ). However I assume, in terms of managing the grid day to day, that such information is going to be important. ( eg if it's a largely cloudly day then that will be manifest as a rise in domestic demand ).
- arethuza 1y agoProbably this one: https://www.zenobe.com/news-and-events/blackhillock-battery-storage-launch/ 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...
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoThat one claims to Europe's biggest, this one is claiming to be the UKs biggest which I guess means an even larger one went live in Europe somewhere in between.
- WJW 1y agoWe 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.
- jacquesm 1y agoYes, Aldel. I think that will pave the way for more moves like that. They have yet to install anything but the financing is there: https://giga-storage.com/giga-storage-rondt-financiering-van-e300-miljoen-af-en-start-bouw-van-300mw-1200mwh-batterijopslagproject-in-delfzijl/ https://giga-storage.com/giga-storage-rondt-financiering-van...
- blitzar 1y ago> 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_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United...
- femto 1y ago> 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.
- jacquesm 1y agoIt will be a long time before you will. That's just not the best application right now.
- rwmj 1y agoIs it 300 or 600 MWh? Or is the storage 600, but it can deliver 300MW/h? Edit: The company press release is much clearer: https://stateraenergy.co.uk/news/thurrock-energisation https://stateraenergy.co.uk/news/thurrock-energisation The storage is 300 MWh, but it can deliver a peak of 600 MW/h (presumably for half an hour).
- riedel 1y agoThe OP says it the other way around though. Power is 300MW and capacity 600MWh=2h*300MW. There is no mentioning of 300MWh in the OP.
- iaebsdfsh 1y agoStorage is measured in MWh, power in Watts, I think the original press release is wrong and it can output 300W for at most two hours. The following link confirms that: https://www.ess-news.com/2025/08/18/statera-energy-powers-up-uks-largest-battery-at-300-mw-thurrock-storage/ https://www.ess-news.com/2025/08/18/statera-energy-powers-up...
- nickdothutton 1y agoAs an aside, this is exactly the kind of nonsense you get when marketing or PR firms have control over final wording. Once had someone change "uninterruptible power supply" to "non-interruptible" and then finally "interruptible" and that is how it went out in the final press release. There was some harsh language that day.
- rwmj 1y agoI hope this wasn't for a UPS company!
- nickdothutton 1y agoWe were launching a new data centre in the UK (early 90s) and wanted to crow about how much power, battery, diesel, etc we had. I don't think the PR firm had any idea what most of the words meant.
- okasaki 1y agoCool so when will this translate into cheaper energy? Why am I paying $0.4 per kwh?
- rwmj 1y agoThis project won't do anything (as you likely already know). The reason electricity is so expensive is because it's tied to gas prices, which is an entirely political decision.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoBatteries will reduce the number of times gas sets the marginal price, so they will have a near immediate impact on that. They'll also likely reduce the balancing costs by relieving congestion. Probably too small to notice among all the other costs and changes, like deploying more renewables and starting to pay in advance for new nuclear.
- mytailorisrich 1y agoGas prices are a political decision, too in Europe. For demand to reduce and for other sources to be more competitive prices have to be and remain high. In the UK I believe it is policy for electricity prices to be high in general for thse reasons and to encourage lower usage.
- skippyboxedhero 1y agoRetail energy prices are subsidised. It isn't policy to encourage lower usage, the government is paying billions to sustain retail consumption (and yes, this is whilst another part of the government is driving prices higher). The issue in the UK is that we moved to renewables that can't produce energy at the margin, marginal prices are still driven by gas, and we simultaneously decided to shut down large amounts of non-renewable sources of energy to satisfy the ambitions of politicians. Result? Highest energy prices in the world, most energy-intensive industry shutting down, and massive reliance on political direction/regulators by industry (the original comment is not right, since the mid-2010s energy companies have been directed day-to-day by the state, invest in this project, don't do this anymore, etc. Our policy is made by people who wish the world was a certain way, reality doesn't matter to them).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tpogden 1y agoFor comparison with a gravitational battery, Dinorwig pumped hydro in north Wales has a max power output of 1.7 GW and storage of 9.1 GWh.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoAbout 10-15 percentage points less efficient because of losses pumping the water uphill though, and slower to react (seconds vs milliseconds) which will probably force it out of the fast frequency response market which batteries have rapidly saturated.
- jacquesm 1y agoIt's pretty much tailor made for batteries and flywheels. 2 seconds is not feasible for pumped hydro, though it still is impressively fast at less than 30 seconds. It is interesting how all of these technologies have their sweet spots.
- ralphhughes 1y agoI've been inside Dinorwig Pumped Hydro plant back when they were doing tours. They keep the turbines spinning with compressed air to avoid the delay of having to spin up that large metal mass of turbine when they open the water valves.
- jacquesm 1y agoYes, the problem is that the changeover moment between 'tons of water moving uphill' and 'tons of water moving downhill' is inviting a serious case of water hammer if not managed properly. Typically it takes about 30 seconds for things to first quiet down and then to allow the flow to reverse. The turbines themselves are already spun up during that interval, either with compressed air or by temporarily using the generators as unloaded motors so they're already synchronized to the grid. The valves are then opened gradually to the point that the generators start leading the phases and hence put power into the grid. It's fascinating how mechanical all of this is. When stuff goes wrong with dams they really go wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayano-Shushenskaya_power_station_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayano-Shushenskaya_power_stat... Standing inside the turbine hall of one of these you can't help but think of the absolutely insane pressure from a water column typically 100's of meters high and half a meter or more across pushing down on a fairly simple valve. Engineering at its finest. To me the big dams are right up there with spaceflight.
- adamm255 1y agoTime to decouple the UK Electricity price from Gas so we can actually reap the benefits of this as a consumer.
- trebligdivad 1y agoIt effectively decouples for any period when no gas is needed; so if those batteries let you turn off the gas generators for an hour the price decouples from gas.
- u02sgb 1y agoThink OP is taking about UK bills which are coupled too the cost of gas for historical reasons. Which needs to change in my view too.
- trebligdivad 1y agoRight - but if we start getting a useful amount of time when the grid doesn't need any gas, the amount of coupling should start to drop off.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoSolving the engineering challenges of "useful amount of time when the grid doesn't need any gas" without also digging into why the UK's energy pricing structure is such an outlier at the expense of consumers, seem a bit like one of those doomed attempts to solve a social issue by purely technical means.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoPretty much all of europe runs on marginal cost electricity. The UK was just extra stupid by banning nearly all construction of onshore wind.
- 1y ago
- Temporary_31337 1y agoWhat is the chemistry and expected lifetime of the batterries? They are saying this is for sustainable energy future but it looks like it's using natural gas (not sustainable) powered energy to charge up Lithium(?) batteries that will need to be replaced every n years (also not sustainable). Which part of this facility makes it more sustainable?
- chippiewill 1y agoWhy would they charge up with natural gas? The UK often has excess wind energy, and for Tilbury in particular that problem is set to grow as National Grid are building out massive grid capacity from the North Sea wind farms through Tilsbury
- Hilift 1y agoA similar project in Australia used Tesla megapack batteries, which are lithium ion. Another form of stored energy uses thermal. A large scale project to plug ~50,000 idle and abandoned oil wells in Kern County, California. Probably worth noting that for states and utilities, consumer solar without batteries has become a liability and doesn't scale up. So effectively, all future consumer solar installations in California will likely have batteries. So there will be batteries at the consumer point, and centralized large scale battery farms like this one to address peak demand and prevent situations where blackouts may need to occur. https://eepower.com/news/engineers-repurpose-oil-wells-as-solar-storage/ https://eepower.com/news/engineers-repurpose-oil-wells-as-so...
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoGenerally LFP with cycles in the at least 5000 range. They are pure arbiters of the market. Filling up when it makes sense and delivering when it makes sense. Which sometimes means buying expensive fossil gas powered electricity to sell it even higher priced later. But what this means is that at that ”later” the peaking plant that originally has been used did not have to start and consumers enjoy cheaper electricity. But what they do is extend the time renewables deliver. In for example California storage has reduced fossil gas usage by 40% in recent years.
- rsynnott 1y ago> With a total capacity of 600MWh, Thurrock Storage is capable of powering up to 680,000 homes, and can help to balance supply and demand by soaking up surplus clean electricity and discharging it instantaneously when the grid needs it. I mean, I get what they’re saying, but I’d certainly hope it is not capable of discharging 600MWh _instantaneously_!
- philipwhiuk 1y agoThe title change rather obscures the actual event that occurred - that this facility is now connected to the grid...
- myrmidon 1y agoFound some older article on financing/timeline since there's not much info here: https://www.ess-news.com/2024/11/05/financial-close-for-uk-project-with-300-mw-600mwh-bess/ https://www.ess-news.com/2024/11/05/financial-close-for-uk-p... The battery storage was ~$200M. Pure prismatic lifepo cells are currently ~$60 per kWh in single digit quantities (would be $40M or 20% of total costs, which seems reasonable). The attached 450MW gas power plant cost ~$350M. I find it rather remarkable how they aquired the contracts in early 2023 and the thing is already running.
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoCheck out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve 63days from start to completion. Paid itself off in 2 years. Saved consumers well over $100million/yr across the state in power bill reductions (only 1.8million people in that state and this is after the battery owners took their profit). There's really nothing but positives from grid scale batteries. They cut out all those <0 and >100x price fluctuations on the grid and the payoff for investors is ridiculous right now. Australia's expected to 20x it's grid connected battery capacity between 2024 and 2027. The growth in battery storage is ridiculous since the costs have come down. https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/top-20-countries-by-battery-storage-capacity/ https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/top-20-countries-by-ba...
- curtisblaine 1y ago> There's really nothing but positives from grid scale batteries I'm pretty sure they have a matching number of positives and negatives.
- livelaughlove69 1y agoVery droll
- dkural 1y ago:D one would hope.
- tomdickandharry 1y ago[dead]
- jeffbee 1y ago[flagged]
- jakobnissen 1y agoThis kind of comment is not productive for the discussion. Next time you feel like typing out a cheap dunk that would degrade conversation, just close the tab and do something else.