UK’s ‘largest battery’ commissioned by Hazel Capital

What is claimed to be the UK’s largest stand-alone battery storage facility has been successfully commissioned by Hazel Capital as the investor continues to build its energy storage project portfolio.

The 15MW Lockleaze project in Bristol received planning consent at the beginning of May before construction, grid connection and energisation followed in under ten weeks.

The project marks the second to be completed as a result of Hazel Capital’s partnership with its affiliate, Noriker Power, after the commissioning of a 20MW hybrid battery/engine project in Newcastle-under-Lyme in March 2017, called Staunch.

Hazel Capital would not reveal who supplied the batteries for the project unlike Staunch, which the company told SPP back in January was using 40 LG Chem batteries. Like Staunch, the project has also won a firm frequency response (FFR) contract through last month’s National Grid tender however Hazel declined to explain the rest of the project’s revenue stack.

Lockleaze was developed by Aura Power and will provide frequency response services to National Grid as Hazel Capital looks to build its aggregation capabilities over the course of the year. By the end of 2017, the clean energy-focused investment manager is targeting 100MW of (export) capacity by the end of 2017.

Simon Coulson, director of Aura Power, said: “We are delighted that the Lockleaze project has been delivered to market in such a short period of time. This project is of particular importance to us, being located close to our head office in Bristol, and it received strong support from the local community. We look forward to delivering many more storage projects through our UK pipeline.”

The Lockleaze project is not likely to remain the largest standalone battery for long, with Centrica confirming today in its H1 2017 results that consutruction on its 49MW Roosecote project is underway.