Yorkshire switches on Europe’s largest battery energy storage system

Elon Musk’s Tesla is at the heart of the commissioning of Europe’s largest battery energy storage system in East Yorkshire.

An announcement yesterday said the system has enough power to power around 300,000 households in the UK for two hours – and has been ‘activated’ in time for winter.

Commenting on Twitter, Elon Musk wrote, “Tesla Megapacks are very effective at dealing with power surges that cause power outages.”

The Pillswood project near Hull was developed by Harmony Energy Limited and uses a 2-hour Tesla Megapack system. It has the capacity to store up to 196 MWh (megawatt hours) of electricity in a single cycle.

Harmony Energy said: “The project will provide key balancing services to the UK electricity grid while enabling the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

The site is adjacent to National Grid’s Creyke Beck substation, the same connection point proposed for phases “A” and “B” of the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank, the first phase of which will become operational in the summer of 2023. .

“Batteries enable National Grid to maximize wind farm efficiency by reducing the time a wind farm has to be ‘shut down’ due to supply and demand imbalances or grid constraints,” said Harmony Energy.

Construction of the Pillswood project was led by Tesla. The project was originally planned to be commissioned in two phases, in December 2022 and March 2023, but the timeline has been accelerated to bring power to both phases in time this month to support National Grid in its efforts to provide stable and power supply ensure a safe power supply during the challenging winter period.

Peter Kavanagh, Director of Harmony Energy, said: “The completion and activation of the Pillswood programme, which is the largest of its kind in Europe by energy capacity, is an important milestone for the Harmony Energy Income Trust as it is the first of six similar programs projects the Trust aims to deliver next year.

“It is also a great achievement for Harmony Energy Limited as this project is the third and largest battery energy storage project that we have developed and subsequently completed.”

“Everyone involved has recognized the importance of getting power on this project before winter and we would like to thank Tesla, G2 Energy and Northern Powergrid for their efforts to bring the project to an early conclusion despite a very challenging geopolitical and global environment .

“Battery storage systems are essential to realizing the full potential of renewable energy in the UK and we hope this will put Yorkshire forward as a leader in green energy solutions.

“These projects will not be supported by taxpayer subsidies and will play an important role in contributing to the transition to net zero, ensuring the future security of the UK’s energy supply and reducing dependence on foreign gas imports. “

According to Harmony Energy, the project will be run through Autobidder, Tesla’s algorithmic trading platform, which has demonstrated a “strong track record” over the past two years managing projects Holes Bay and Contego – two existing battery storage projects that Harmony is also developing. developed Energy Limited associated with FRV.