Broxburn battery project sold

A battery energy storage project under construction in West Lothian has been acquired for £20 million by a renewable energy investor.

The Renewables Infrastructure Group (Trig) said the Broxburn facility will have a capacity of 20 megawatts (MW) when it is completed early next year, with an expected operational life of 15 years.

Trig chair Helen Mahy said: “The use of battery storage is becoming increasingly important in enabling grid networks to match fluctuations in the supply and demand of electricity and to stabilise power frequency.

“This becomes especially vital as the installed base of renewables generation increases. We are excited to be playing a part in this by investing in Broxburn, one of the first large-scale commercial power storage projects to be developed in the UK.”

The Broxburn project was developed and is being constructed by Trig’s operations manager, Renewable Energy Systems (RES). It holds a contract with National Grid Electricity Transmission to provide “dynamic, two-way grid balancing services” to the grid.

Trig has invested in a portfolio of 56 renewables projects, including onshore wind, solar and power storage projects, across the UK, France and the Republic of Ireland.

It will have an aggregate net output capacity of 774MW with completion of the Broxburn project, the purchase of which is set to be financed from Trig’s cash resources and a drawdown of the group’s revolving acquisition facility.

RES has developed or built more than 250 wind, solar, energy storage and transmission projects totalling more than 12 gigawatts in capacity. It operates in ten countries and has more than 1,900 employees.