Edinburgh-based flexible energy firm Flexitricity and Bristol-based renewable energy investment company Thrive Renewables have entered into an optimisation agreement for a 20 megawatt (MW) battery energy storage system (BESS).
The deal covers Thrive’s Feeder Road site in its home city and kickstarts a collaboration between the two business.
The lithium-ion BESS site will be monitored from Flexitricity’s control room in Edinburgh. The asset will operate across multiple markets, including frequency response, wholesale traded power, the balancing mechanism and emerging flexibility services.
Flexitricity pioneered the demand side response industry in Great Britain over 13 years ago and has added grid scale and battery storage projects to its ‘virtual power plant’ platform, which aggregates multiple sites benefiting customers as well as the national energy system.
Flexitricity has a contracted virtual power plant of over 800MW and this agreement pushes the contracted portfolio of batteries to over 330MW.
Thrive Renewables has been building and operating renewable energy projects in the UK for 28 years. In that time, it has built or funded the construction of 31 renewable energy projects from wind to hydro-electric. Thrive has also invested in solar, geothermal, ground source heat and in early commercial-scale tidal generation capacity.
The renewable energy company further diversified its portfolio when it launched its first battery storage site, a 5MW site located in Wicken, Cambidgeshire, in 2020. The following year, Thrive continued its development in battery storage with the launch of its Feeder Road site just one mile away from its headquarters in Bristol.
Andy Lowe, chief executive at Flexitricity, said: “Energy storage has a vital role to play in helping the UK transition to net zero and Flexitricity is ideally placed to maximise revenue for asset owners, enabling them to create a solid business case for investment in more green energy projects.
“Therefore, an agreement with Thrive, who are at the forefront of the renewable energy sector, brings great synergies and we are thrilled to have them onboard.”
Monika Paplaczyk, investment director at Thrive Renewables, said: “This deal with Flexitricity demonstrates the potential of smaller battery projects to be optimised as part of a larger virtual power plant to provide a significant flexibility resource to the grid.
“This means ultimately, we can make better use of the abundant renewable resources available to us.
“Feeder Road will enable further deployment of wind and solar generation and will help to provide the backbone of the resilient, renewables dominated electricity grid the country needs going forward.”
Separately, ILI Group, with joint venture partners the Abbey Group and Yoo Energy, have achieved planning consent for their 50MW energy storage project at Cathkin near East Kilbride.
The project was unanimously approved at the South Lanarkshire Council planning committee earlier this week.
ILI Group is behind plans for 4GW of Energy Storage in Scotland comprising of 2.5GW of Pumped Storage Hydro and 1.5GW of Battery Storage.
Mark Wilson, ILI chief executive, said: “The Cathkin project takes us to our first 1GW of energy storage projects consented across 11 battery storage projects and our 'Red John' pumped storage hydro project at Loch Ness.
“A massive increase in energy storage is a crucial catalyst for the further growth of renewable energy and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, Projects like Cathkin will help the UK realise its net zero aspirations.”
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