UK energy storage company Highview Power has partnered with power station developer Carlton Power to install a commercial-scale liquid air energy storage plant.
The two companies have created a joint venture company, named Carlton Highview Storage, to build the 250 megawatt-hour (MWh) system at Trafford Energy Park, in Manchester.
The company has secured a £10m (€11m) grant from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to support the project.
Construction of the CRYOBattery Trafford Energy Park scheme is expected to start later this year and enter commercial operation in 2022.
The new company will also develop up to four further CRYOBattery projects in the UK, totalling over 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh).
The Trafford Energy Park facility will be the largest battery storage system of its kind in Europe.
The CRYOBattery plant will supply clean, reliable and cost-efficient long-duration energy storage to the National Grid, said Highview.
It will use existing substation and transmission infrastructure, with its income derived from several markets, including arbitrage (buying electricity when prices are low and selling it when prices are high), grid balancing, the capacity market, and ancillary services such as frequency response and voltage support.
Carlton Power chief executive Keith Clarke said: “We looked at a variety of energy storage technologies for utility-scale, long-duration services, and selected Highview’s liquid air energy storage because it is scalable, clean, can deliver the grid services we need, and can be deployed now.
“We were also keen to work with Highview Power to explore the opportunity to deploy the CRYOBattery in tandem with a gas-fired power plant that we have permitted to be built on the Trafford Energy Park.
He said the hybrid combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant would be an “important tool to enable the UK to reach net zero”.
A hybrid CCGT combines the ability of Highview’s CRYOBattery to provide long term, high volume storage of renewable electricity, with the low cost, low emissions capabilities of the latest CCGT technologies.
In the transition to net zero, such facilities can also be converted to operate on green hydrogen fuels or retrofitted with carbon capture capability.
Highview Power president and CEO Javier Cavada said: “We are excited to team up with Carlton Power for our first large-scale commercial UK project.
“They have an impressive track record of deploying grid-scale energy projects in the UK and their commitment to developing multiple projects with us speaks volumes about their confidence in our technology.
“We are on a fast-track to develop our cryogenic energy storage systems around the globe and this partnership will help accelerate momentum in the European markets.”
BEIS energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng said: “This revolutionary new CRYOBattery facility will form a key part of our push towards net zero, bringing greater flexibility to Britain’s electricity grid and creating green collar jobs in Greater Manchester.
“Projects like these will help us realise the full value of our world-class renewables, ensuring homes and businesses can still be powered by green energy, even when the sun is not shining and the wind not blowing.”