UK energy storage developer SMS has begun operating two grid batteries with a combined capacity of 90MW.
One is a 50MW project located at Brook Farm, near Ipswich in Suffolk, and the other is a 40MW site in Stairfoot, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
Both are now fully operational, delivering grid balancing and flexibility services at a time of year when the power network has come under increased strain due to cold weather, gas shortages and heightened winter demand.
According to National Grid, the UK will require circa 20GW of battery storage by 2030 and around 35GW by 2050 to fully realise the benefits of a net zero energy system.
The country’s operational battery storage capacity stands at 2.1GW.
The latest battery projects to be connected to the grid are the second and third sites that SMS has developed following the completion of its inaugural 50MW BESS in Cambridgeshire last year.
While these newly commissioned sites take SMS’s total operational capacity to 140MW across three live projects, the company has also announced fully secured consent for an additional 200MW of projects in England.
This takes the group’s total BESS pipeline to 760MW, including 150MW already under construction and expected to be completed in 2023.
John Flaherty, Managing Director of Grid-scale Energy Storage at SMS, said: “By investing in and developing grid-scale storage capacity, as SMS is doing, Britain can finally wean itself off fossil fuel imports and achieve true energy independence.
Through our 760MW pipeline of energy storage projects, to be delivered over the next five years, we’re proud to be helping make energy in the UK more sustainable, secure, and affordable today, and for generations to come.”