Quinbrook also owns Project Fortress, as well as owning battery storage optimiser Flexitricity. Image: Flexitricity
A 230MW/460MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) lauded as one of the UK’s largest is to be developed at former coal generation site Uskmouth, with a new partnership signed.
Global sustainable energy developer, owner and operator Simec Atlantis Energy (SAE) has signed a contract with Energy Optimisation Solutions and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners via the two’s portfolio company Uskmouth Energy Storage (UES) to deliver the project, which is to be on former coal stockyard.
The BESS is expected to become operational towards the end of 2024, with construction expected to take 18 months – however the development is still subject to planning approval from Newport City Council. It will also require a modification of the grid connection agreement, with SAE having submitted the modification application to National Grid.
This requests that the Uskmouth site’s connection agreement be varied to accommodate a BESS facility.
UES will own and operate the project, which will deliver roughly £40 million in revenue to SAE over 30 years, of which £11 million will be paid within the next 18 months, subject to the achievement of certain milestones.
The BESS – which SAE said represents an anchoring project in the development of the Uskmouth site into a Sustainable Energy Park – is to “play a key role” in the UK’s energy transition and the integration of more renewable power into the electricity system.
Quinbrook, meanwhile, is involved in the development of several large scale BESS and solar sites, having acquired the 350MW Cleve Hill solar-plus-storage site in Kent, UK, last year, and renaming it Project Fortress. Other BESS projects from Quinbrook include its Gemini solar and battery storage project in Nevada, US, which consists of 690MW of solar PV and 380MW of battery storage and is being developed by subsidiary Primergy.