Published: 1 Feb 2022, 10:24
The battery energy storage project site sits adjacent to the Spennymoor substation in County Durham. Image: RES.
Renewable asset developer RES has submitted a planning application for a 99.9MW battery energy storage project in County Durham.
The Spennymoor site forms part of the company’s portfolio of over 700MW of energy storage projects in development or construction in the UK and Ireland currently.
If approved it would sit adjacent to the Spennymoor substation, and provide grid balancing services. It has already gone through several design iterations in response to site surveys, with the version submitted including a number of biodiversity measures such as the planting of mixed grassland and woodlands on spoil bunds.
“As we make the rapid transition to low-cost renewables it’s important that we develop more energy storage capacity on our grid to support a more flexible system,” said Jenna Folkard, RES development project manager.
“Spennymoor Energy Storage Project will have an installed capacity of 99.9 megawatts, making it one of our largest developments to date and one that will play an important part in the UK’s target of reaching net zero by 2050.”
To date, RES has developed 23 energy storage projects globally. In the UK, its portfolio includes the 99.9MW Lakeside battery energy storage system (BESS) – due to start construction in Q4 2022 – which it sold to TagEnergy for close to £65 million in December 2021. This followed TagEnergy also acquiring the 50MW Roaring Hill Energy Storage Project from RES in October 2021.
In May 2021, the company sold an 80MW BESS in Milton Keynes to Gore Street Energy Storage Fund.
Additionally, RES won a tender to provide operations and maintenance services for China Huaneng Group’s Minety battery storage project in August 2021.
The company has delivered more than 22GW of renewable energy projects, including onshore and offshore wind, solar, energy storage, transmission and distribution, over its 40-year history.