UK’s first DC-coupled battery energy storage system to be connected at wind-solar park

GE Renewable Energy announced this
week that it has been selected by Wykes to deliver a 25-MW multiple hour
duration Energy Storage Systems, to be integrated with Wykes’ Solar PV plant at
the Chelveston Renewable Energy Park, in the United Kingdom. The site currently
operates with 60 MW of solar energy and 26 MW of wind energy that use GE’s 2.85-MW
onshore wind turbines.

Wykes will use GE’s Reservoir
Energy Storage technology to add another 60 MW of solar capacity, for a total
of 120 MW of solar and 146 MW from the wind-solar park. 

The storage system will be the
UK’s first direct-DC-coupled solar deployment where the solar panels and the batteries
will share a common set of power conversion equipment. This will help improve
the overall energy output of the solar-storage hybrid system while optimizing
costs and increasing the overall system reliability and flexibility, according
to GE.

With the reservoir energy
storage system Wykes have full flexibility for today’s market circumstances and
future market dynamics, said GE.  It allows Wykes to optimize the energy it
generates on site and gives it the flexibility to choose how and when the
energy generated is used.  

Scott Coleman, Process and
Controls Engineering Manager, Wykes Engineering Ltd said “As part of our
ongoing relationship with GE Renewable Energy, we selected their power storage
system as it was flexible, scalable and allowed us to perform a range of tasks
enabling us to provide resilient services, not only to the National Grid, but
to our private energy consumers within our expanding on-site grid.”

Prakash Chandra, Renewable
Hybrids CEO, GE Renewable Energy, said: “The world is increasingly moving
to generate more dispatchable renewables using hybrid solutions – combining the
power of standalone technologies like wind and solar with storage through
controls and software.”

The UK Government recently
announced that it will make it easier to construct projects to store renewable
energy from solar and wind farms across the UK as part of its efforts to reduce
greenhouse gases by 2050.  There are currently 4 GW of storage projects in
planning in addition to the 1 GW of battery storage already in operation in the
UK.