United Kingdom – With its 800 MW battery portfolio in central Scotland, Amp Energy has announced Europe’s two largest battery storage facilities.
The portfolio will be operational in April 2024 and will consist of two 400 MW battery facilities, each with an energy storage capacity of 800 MWhrs. The Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit granted the two sites planning permission following consultations with stakeholders and local councils.
The two 400 MW battery storage facilities will be Europe’s two largest grid-connected battery storage facilities.
The power from the batteries will be dispatched to the electricity grid using Amp X, Amp’s AI-powered digital energy platform. The projects will provide grid stability and power management services across Scotland’s central belt, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. The projects are future-proofing the UK’s electricity infrastructure by storing and managing renewable energy generated by Scottish wind farms at a fraction of the cost of expensive transmission upgrades.
Setting the global standard
The projects, which are located in Hunterston and Kincardine, are setting the global standard for energy storage and are an important step forward for the UK in achieving its net-zero goal. The need for large-scale energy storage that can shift power and provide grid stability services has become even more critical following the recent ScotWind offshore wind announcement for the planned addition of 25 GW of new renewable generation capacity. Amp’s Scottish battery facilities will allow up to 1,750 GWhrs of additional renewable energy to be generated in Scotland and transported to other parts of the UK per year in the coming years, which is equivalent to about 500 MW of new offshore wind deployments.
The Hunterston and Kincardine projects are also competing in National Grid’s Scottish Stability Pathfinder 2 tender, which aims to solve the UK electricity grid’s voltage and stability problems. Amp’s facilities will use cutting-edge grid-forming inverter technology, as well as two new Synchronous Condensers that will help with grid stabilization.
European expansion
Amp’s expansion into Europe continues with this investment, which includes the development and ownership of solar and wind projects with large-scale energy storage facilities in Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as the active development of several green hydrogen projects to complement its Asia-Pacific green hydrogen development activities.
Amp X, Amp’s proprietary AI-powered digital energy platform, will optimize and dispatch the Scottish Green Battery Complex. Amp X relies on its cloud-hosted state-of-the-art advanced analytics and proprietary and already bankable transactive-ready system architecture. The Amp X platform, which is self-contained, solves grid constraints, provides flexibility, and facilitates the end-to-end energy transition.
