SMS brings 90MW of UK storage space online

• 50MW site near Ipswich and also a 40MW system in Barnsley are currently completely operational

UK power storage space programmer SMS has actually started running 2 grid batteries with a combined capacity of 90MW.

One is a 50MW project situated at Brook Farm, near Ipswich in Suffolk, and the various other is a 40MW site in Stairfoot, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

Both are now completely functional, delivering grid balancing as well as flexibility solutions at a time of year when the power network has actually come under boosted strain due to winter, gas shortages and heightened wintertime need.

According to National Grid, the UK will call for circa 20GW of battery storage by 2030 and also around 35GW by 2050 to totally become aware the benefits of a net zero power system.

The country's operational battery storage space capacity stands at 2.1 GW.

The latest battery projects to be linked to the grid are the 2nd and also 3rd sites that SMS has actually established adhering to 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 online projects, the business has actually likewise revealed completely safeguarded approval for an additional 200MW of projects in England.

This takes the team's total BESS pipeline to 760MW, consisting of 150MW currently under construction as well as expected to be completed in 2023.

John Flaherty, Managing Director of Grid-scale Energy Storage at SMS, stated: "By buying and developing grid-scale storage space capacity, as SMS is doing, Britain can finally wean itself off fossil fuel imports and also achieve true power independence.

With our 760MW pipe of power storage space projects, to be provided over the following five years, we're proud to be assisting make energy in the UK much more sustainable, safe and secure, and inexpensive today, as well as for generations to find."