Highview has secured funding to begin work on its second long-term energy storage (LDES) site in the UK.
The company has raised £130 million for the first phase of its planned 3.2GWh hybrid LDES solution in Hunterston, Scotland, building a ‘stability island’.
The so-called stability island will function independently of the energy storage elements on site and provide the electricity grid with inertia, short circuit and voltage support. Highview chief executive Richard Butland said this will “avoid costly curtailment and maximize the renewable energy we generate in Britain”.
Solar energy portal heard that the stability island consists of a flywheel and a generator that acts as a synchronous compensator. The generator will eventually be connected to the project’s turbine for liquid air energy storage once it is built, but in the meantime the stability island will still be able to provide network services independently of the turbine using a link.
First announced last Octoberthe Hunterston facility will later integrate both liquid air energy storage and lithium-ion batteries, allowing the site to supply large amounts of flexible power to the grid for extended periods of time.
The £130 million announced today brings the total amount raised by Highview to commercialize its LDES solutions to over £500 million.
Highview is known for its patented Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) technology, which last year raised £300 million from Centrica and the UK Infrastructure Bank to 50MW/300MWh LDES project using the technology in Carrington, Manchester.
The stability island for that project is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in August 2026, with the LAES system expected to be operational in 2027.
Centrica (a strategic partner of Highview) has also contributed to the funding round for the first phase of the Scottish site, with investment also coming from the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and investors including Goldman Sachs, KIRKBI and Mozaïek Capital.
The facility will be located at the Peel Ports site in North Ayrshire and the stability island is expected to be operational in January 2028, with the full facility coming online in January 2030. The energy storage element of the project was named as an eligible project for the energy regulator. Ofgem’s Cap and Floor LDES support scheme. A final decision will be made in the second quarter of 2026 as to whether the projects can be built with a cap and floor
Hunterston is the first project in Highview’s second phase of project development, called the Millennium Series, which will comprise a total of four projects. Highview has also released plans to build a second 3.2 GWh site in Lincolnshire.
