Battery pilot in Scotland to open door to wind energy storage

A new battery storage solution for offshore wind energy will be tested at the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, currently under construction off the coast of Scotland.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Statoil, the Scottish government, the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Scottish Enterprise to develop the Batwind pilot project which could support the deployment of wind energy through the addition of storage.

Statoil will install a 1MWh Lithium battery based storage pilot system in late 2018 at the Hywind windfarm off the coast of Aberdeen.

The floating wind farm is currently under construction and is expected to be commissioned in 2018.

Batwind has the potential to mitigating intermittency and optimise output to drive efficiency and lower costs of offshore projects, and will provide the technological and commercial foundation for implementation in full-scale offshore wind farms.

Scotland’s energy minister Fergus Ewing said: “The signing of this MoU will allow the signatories to work together in the development of the Batwind battery storage solution.

“This will help maximise the renewable generation of the Hywind offshore wind farm, whilst informing the case for energy storage and demonstrating the technology’s ability to support renewables in Scotland and internationally.”

A programme is now being established under the MoU to support and fund innovation in the battery storage area between Statoil and Scottish industry and academia. This programme will be managed by ORE Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.

Big six energy supplier Eon has also this week teamed up with a group of universities to create and connect a giant battery-based energy storage research facility to the grid, in a move that has created one of the largest and fastest energy storage facilities in the UK.