New legislation to boost battery storage in Britain

Secondary legislation will remove barriers for storage projects above 50 megawatt in England and 350 megawatt in Wales, allowing more clean energy to be stored and used all-year round

LONDON: The UK government is to change legislation to make it easier to construct large batteries to store renewable energy from solar and wind farms in Britain, it said on Tuesday.

Secondary legislation will remove barriers for storage projects above 50 megawatt in England and 350 megawatt in Wales, allowing more clean energy to be stored and used all-year round.

“Removing barriers for energy storage projects, which are discouraging bolder investment decisions in larger battery facilities, could treble the number of batteries serving the electricity grid,” the government said in a statement on its website.

“It will help bring about storage cells that are 5 times bigger than those currently available.”

Batteries can help the electricity system to be more efficient by managing peaks and falls in demand and will form part of the Britain’s smarter electricity grid, supporting the integration of more low-carbon technologies, the statement added.

There is 1 gigawatt of battery storage in operation in Britain, with 4 gigawatt of storage projects in planning.

Source: reuters