The Scottish Government has approved the construction and operation of a 228 MW/456 MWh battery energy storage project (BESS) by developer Kona Energy.
The 2-hour Smeaton BESS in East Lothian is strategically located to increase grid resilience and reduce grid constraints, Kona said. The nearby Torness nuclear power station will close in 2028, which will increase the usefulness of the Smeaton BESS, it added.
Kona did not say when it expected the project to come online, but said it would now seek investment to bring the project to market.
A ‘Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment’ application on the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit website shows that the Smeaton project is planned to have 75 series of battery units, each of which will be connected to a ‘power station’, a power conversion system (PCS). unit. Each array consists of 20 battery cabinets measuring 1.3 x 1.3 x 2.3 meters.
There is a substantial need for large-scale BESS in Scotland to help offset the regional imbalance between supply and demand in Britain.
Much of Britain’s current and future wind energy production takes place in Scotland, but greater demand comes from England. This leads to massive amounts of restrictions due to transmission restrictions, with the transmission system operator (TSO) National Grid, through the National Energy System Operator (NESO), paying operators to reduce or stop generation.
This article was originally published on Energy-Storage.News.
