Europe's Largest BESS in Scotland

The Scottish government gives the green light for new ‘Scottish Green Battery Complex’

Holyrood issued planning consent for the new storage system to be built on two sites in Hunterston and Kincardine. The Hunterston facility will be located relatively near to the Hunterston B nuclear power station. The Kincardine facility will be supplied with energy by the nearby offshore wind farm.

Highlights

Stakeholder and local council consultations complete.
5th January 2022 – both sites receive planning permission Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit.
400 MW batteries will be largest grid-connected storage facilities in Europe.
AI-powered digital energy platform will to optimize power output to the grid.
Grid stability for Scottish central belt including Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Scottish windfarms will supply energy to be stored.
Scottish Green Battery Complex will future-proof UK’s electricity infrastructure.

Amp Energy won the contract to build the new battery energy storage system. The Toronto-based energy company has secured planning permission to install the systems which will supply power to Scotland and other regions in the UK.

Largest BESS in Scotland

The largest BESS in Scotland will be built by Amp Energy. It will be known as the Scottish Green Battery Complex. When complete it will provide 800MW/1,600MWh of battery storage. Hunterston and Kincardine and ideal locations in central Scotland where the population density is high, currently 5.4 million. The complex will be a fraction of the cost of expensive transmission upgrades.

Scheduled to come online in April 2024, this installation will be the two largest grid-connected battery storage facilities in Europe. Each battery facility will store up to 400 MW/800 MWh each. This will be by far the biggest BESS in Scotland, let alone Europe. Minity BESS in Wiltshire is currently (in 2022) the largest in the UK. However the new BESS in Scotland will be well over five times as big at 800MW.

Scottish Green Battery Complex

The Scottish Green Battery Complex will provide grid stability and power management services across the central belt of Scotland. Glasgow and Edinburgh will benefit hugely from the new BESS. The two BESS’s will output up to 1,750 GWh of of renewable power every year. Amp Energy will use its proprietary AI-powered digital energy platform to enhance the distribution of power from the batteries to the grid.

Statements

National Grid ESO says;

As traditional coal and gas plants are phased out from Britain’s energy system, the transmission system short circuit levels are falling. Renewable generators like wind and solar connect to the grid in a different way, which doesn’t give us the same stabilizing properties. So we need to find new providers to help support the system.

Says Ben Skinner, Vice President Global Markets at Amp;

With these ground-breaking projects Amp is making a significant investment in vitally needed green infrastructure as the UK transitions to a fully decarbonized grid. Our projects not only support the growth of renewable generation in Scotland but also provide an alternative to costly transmission upgrades for consumers.

Says Paul Ezekiel, Amp’s Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer;

The UK electricity grid is in the process of transitioning to a greener net-zero market. This has only been accelerated with the recently awarded addition of 25GW of offshore wind licenses as part of the ScotWind offshore wind leasing program. Amp’s development of strategically located, transmission-connected utility-scale batteries is helping the GB transmission network operator to provide UK citizens with a stable and secure carbon free electricity system. With our global scale and the disruptive innovation that we are deploying with our Amp X platform, we are at the forefront of the global energy transition. The deployment of Green Hydrogen and utility-scale energy storage, such as the Scottish Green Battery Complex, is critical to our continued rapid growth and long-term strategy.

We specialize in BESS

Visit our BESS production services page if you’d like to learn more or please call our dedicated sales team on +44 (0)1606 272864, we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

Europe’s Largest BESS in Scotland