Statkraft indicators Cirencester hybrid power play

• 23MW project to feature solar as well as 10MW of battery storage capacity

Statkraft has actually authorized a second hybrid power acquisition and also battery optimization arrangement with Warrington Borough Council, covering a solar farm and also battery storage site it owns in Gloucestershire.

Cirencester Solar Farm, which is entirely owned by Warrington Borough Council, includes a 23MWp solar farm and a DC-coupled 10MW battery storage facility, and is the very first large-scale DC-coupled solar and also storage center in the UK.

The DC-coupled arrangement at Cirencester is different to other sites, in that it involves linking the photovoltaic panels and battery cells behind a common inverter, which converts the electricity directly to AC for export to the grid.

This prevents additional conversion stages, allowing batteries to be extra successfully charged from the solar panels, and means Statkraft can more effectively optimize the battery in a much more incorporated way with the clean, eco-friendly power generated there.

This new deal means Statkraft currently optimizes five co-located renewable energy and also battery sites throughout the UK and Ireland in behalf of its consumers, including the York hybrid site likewise owned by Warrington Borough Council, which was checked in June 2020.

This deal broadens Statkraft's leading optimization capacities covering co-located and also hybrid sites, showing its ability to cover all types of AC and DC-coupled configurations.

Statkraft Head of UK Energy Storage, Markets, Nick Heyward stated: "Having actually worked with Warrington Borough Council on optimising their very first hybrid solar and battery site in York, we are delighted to be further broadening our partnership and handling this practically advanced project.

" The DC-coupled nature of the site needed us to take on a different optimization strategy and also entails increasing additionally the technical capacities of 'UNITY', our trading optimization platform, to handle such co-located sites.

" As grid-connection capacity ends up being difficult to safeguard throughout the UK, we're expecting to see the implementation of even more co-located storage as well as renewables which need similar sophisticated optimization techniques."