Renewable energy developer Amp Energy said that it will develop two 400 MW grid-connected battery storage facilities with 800 MWh of capacity in central Scotland. The Scottish Green Battery Complex could enter service in April 2024 and would be one of the largest such facilities in Europe.
Plans call for the batteries to store and dispatch renewable energy from Scottish wind farms.
Amp said it would use its digital energy platform to optimize dispatch of power from the batteries to the electricity grid. The projects are intended to provide reliable grid stability services and power management across central Scotland. including Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Toronto, Canada-based Amp said that following the recent ScotWind offshore wind announcement for the planned addition of 25 GW of new renewable generation capacity, large-scale energy storage can shift power and provide grid stability services. Amp said that its Scottish battery facilities will enable up to 1,750 GWh per year of additional renewable energy to be generated and transported to other regions of the UK. It said that amount of capacity could enable roughly 500 MW of new offshore wind deployments.
The Hunterston and Kincardine projects are also participating in National Grid’s Scottish Stability Pathfinder 2 tender, which seeks to address voltage and stability issues faced by the UK electricity grid. Amp’s facilities will deploy grid-forming inverter technology alongside two new synchronous condenser installations which also assist with grid stabilization.
(A DC-excited synchronous motor is used to adjust grid conditions by either generating or absorbing reactive power as needed to adjust the grid’s voltage or to improve power factor.)
The projects continue Amp’s expansion into Europe, which includes development and ownership of solar and wind with large-scale energy storage facilities in Spain and the UK, along with development of several green hydrogen projects.
In mid-January, Amp closed a $350 million cross-jurisdictional credit facility with a group of institutional investors including Brookfield Asset Management, an unnamed sovereign wealth fund, and Nomura Securities. The facility has structural features that potentially allow an increase up to $700 million.
It will be used to support construction of Amp’s renewables and battery storage asset portfolio globally. The investment will focus initially on funding Amp’s construction-stage assets in the U.S., Australia, and Japan, with the intent to add incremental investment-grade geographic markets as Amp continues to scale.