Tesla battery to offer solar energy park ‘a lot more opportunity’ in the future

Kiwi Power is to finance and develop a battery storage project at an energy site including solar in south Wales, where it will provide constant grid services availability to National Grid for two years in a first for the aggregator.

The 4MW Tesla battery will sit within a cluster of integrated clean technologies at Cenin Renewables’ Parc Stormy site in Bridgend, which hosts a 735kW solar installation, a low carbon cement facility, an anaerobic digestion plant and a wind turbine.

The battery, which will also be managed by KiWi Power, will deliver firm frequency response (FFR) to National Grid after securing a contract in August’s monthly tender to provide 24 hour availability across each week from 1 February 2018 to 31 January 2020.

While this contract precludes the storage facility from performing grid charge avoidance, KiWi Power’s head of energy storage Stephan Marty said Cenin Renewables would share in future revenues stemming from the onsite generation.

“That site has a lot of onsite generation from renewable and non-renewable sources so we see in the future there's going to be a lot more opportunity to do more than ancillary services and the capacity market,” he told sister title Clean Energy News.

The project has also been entered into pre-qualification for capacity market which could offer a revenue stream for the project from 2021/22.

According to planning documents, Parc Stormy was originally intended to use a 10MW battery from Alevo in one of two projects planned by KiWi Power. However this was altered by a submission in June to the 4MW Tesla, just two months before the US arm of the Swiss battery maker filed for bankruptcy.  

Martyn Popham, director of Cenin, said: “We are pleased KiWi chose to invest at our Parc Stormy site in Bridgend which is another important step in our goal to demonstrate that by integrating renewable generation on one site you can deliver a reliable sustainable power source whilst providing much needed local economic development.”

The company has now begun an extensive roll-out of similar batteries across the UK within the commercial and industrial sectors.

KiWi says it has already invested heavily in battery technology which will augment its existing demand side response capability and significantly improve customers’ energy management in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way.

Yoav Zingher, chief executive of KiWi Power, said: “KiWi Power is delighted to bring the benefits of battery technology to high energy users without them having to invest in the battery. This is a major first not just for us at KiWi but for the UK energy sector as a whole.

“The UK is slowly waking up to the potential of flexibility and battery energy storage’s role in that. By applying demand side response (DSR) techniques widely used elsewhere in the world, the UK could save nearly 10GW of demand – roughly equivalent to three Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations.”