Oil and gas giant Shell has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with UK public charging network Ubitricity to supply the company with electricity generated at its Iddenhsall solar project, currently under development in Cheshire.
The Iddenshall solar farm was initially developed by Anesco, with a capacity of 17.6 MW, and Shell first announced plans to acquire the project in 2022. as part of a broader initiative to acquire 100 MW of solar capacity from the developer. The deal with ubitricity will last ten years and will help meet the power demand of Britain’s 14,600 public charging points. The charging network operator said the deal would see “a significant proportion” of total UK electricity demand met by solar.
The ubitricity network is currently powered by sources with Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs), meaning the electricity used on the network is compared with equivalent amounts of electricity sourced from UK renewable energy projects.
Shell expects to start commercial operations on the Iddenshall project this summer; Until the project starts generating electricity, Ubitricity will receive power from Shell Energy Europe’s other UK solar installations. Shell has a total operating portfolio of approximately 1.7 GW across Europe was selected by Google last year to oversee the power supply to one of its new data centers in Britain.
Shell is also involved in the battery energy storage systems (BESS) sector. Last year, BW ESS CEO Erik Strømsø spoke with Solar energy portal about a seven-year tolling agreement signed with Shell for the Bramley BESS project, citing it as an example of the work of companies in the UK’s increasingly mature BESS sector.
Read the full version of this story on EV Infrastructure News.
