Wartsila will partner with energy company SSE to deliver a 50 MW / 100 MWh energy storage system in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The battery will be the first connected directly to the transmission network by SSE’s solar and battery division and will support access to clean energy by balancing the intermittency of renewables. The system is expected to become operational in September 2023, Wartsila said in a news statement.
This battery project developed by SSE will help the UK to scale up energy storage to meet its renewable energy targets. UK’s energy storage pipeline has doubled within the past year.
Kenneth Engblom, Vice President of Europe and Africa, Wartsila Energy said: “This project is a big moment for us as we help one of the UK’s largest energy players scale up renewable energy and provide more British consumers with reliable, low-cost, and clean energy.”
Richard Cave-Bigley, SSE’s Director of Solar and Battery, said: “Today is a key milestone for SSE as we build out our first battery storage project at Salisbury, but it is also just the beginning of a multi-GW pipeline of solar and battery projects to come.”
SSE is investing £24 billion over this decade (circa £7 million a day) in low carbon infrastructure of this kind.
Wartsila is installing similar sized energy storage systems across the UK. Energy storage capacity will need to dramatically rise to 18 GW by 2035 to manage the transition, according to modelling from Wartsila.