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Earth Science

Europe's Biggest Battery Powered Up In Scotland (zenobe.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
AmiMoJo shares a report: Europe's biggest battery storage project has entered commercial operation in Scotland [alternative source], promising to soak up surplus wind power and prevent turbines being paid to switch off.

Zenobe said the first phase of its project at Blackhillock, between Inverness and Aberdeen, was now live with capacity to store enough power to supply 200 megawatts of electricity for two hours. It is due to be expanded to 300 megawatts by next year, enough to supply 3.1 million homes, more than every household in Scotland.

The government's Clean Power 2030 action plan sets a target capacity of up to 27 gigawatts of batteries by 2030, a sixfold increase from the 4.5 gigawatts installed today. This huge expansion is seen as critical as Britain builds more renewable wind and solar power, since batteries can store surplus generation for use when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

Europe's Biggest Battery Powered Up In Scotland More | Reply

Europe's Biggest Battery Powered Up In Scotland

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  • Is 200 Megawatts for 2 hours the same as 400 Megawatt Hours? Or is the 2 hour unit significant in some way?

    • Re:200 Megawatts for 2 hours? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @11:14AM (#65210075) Homepage Journal

      The maximum discharge rate to 200MW. It can provide that for two hours, so has 400MWh of storage.

      Or maybe more, it's not clear if it is 400MWh usable or gross capacity.

      Either way, it's a very big battery. Whole country UPS size.

    • Or is the 2 hour unit significant in some way?

      Maybe. It could specify the maximum discharge rate.

    • Re:200 Megawatts for 2 hours? (Score:5, Informative)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2025 @11:39AM (#65210139) Homepage

      Is 200 Megawatts for 2 hours the same as 400 Megawatt Hours? Or is the 2 hour unit significant in some way?

      200 MW is the power. 2 hours is the duration.
      200 MW times 2 hours is the capacity, 400 MW-hr.

      Power, duration and capacity are all important.

    • 200 MW for 2 hours is 400 MWh. However, this makes it the largest electrochemical battery but not the largest electric storage battery, even in Scotland, thanks to the mechanical battery that is Ben Cruachan's pumped storage powerstation. This can pump water between two lochs and can provice 440MW of power for 22 hours.

    • The total amount of power a battery can provide depends on the rate at which it provides power. In other words, 200mw for 2 hours is not the equivalent of 100mw for 4 hours. The battery will be able to provide 100mw for more than 4 hours.

      When anyone uses MW as a measure of battery capacity they likely don't know what they are talking about. Unless they are a grid operator talking about the rate the battery can provide power to the grid at a moment in time. Battery storage is always measured as a combinatio

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        When anyone uses MW as a measure of battery capacity they likely don't know what they are talking about

        ...unless they also include the discharge duration, e.g., 200 MW for 2 hours.

        • ...unless they also include the discharge duration, e.g., 200 MW for 2 hours.

          Exactly. So what does this mean?

          The government's Clean Power 2030 action plan sets a target capacity of up to 27 gigawatts of batteries by 2030, a sixfold increase from the 4.5 gigawatts installed today.

      • sure they are a grid operator - who else?

  • It appears that the PR department doesn't employ people with any science knowledge.

  • 300 mega Watts for 3.1 million homes is less than 100 Watts per home. I guess that no one is charging an EV at night.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 0xG ( 712423 )

      For ten minutes. Yet anoter reporter over his head in science.

      • For ten minutes. Yet anoter reporter over his head in science.

        Hmmm.

        One of you throws out a misleading ‘no one can charge their EV’ line, and the other follows up with some absurd, cooked-up ‘10 minutes per home’ nonsense. That 10 minute number you came up with only works if one assumes every single home in Scotland is charging an EV at the same time—and only with a low-power Level 1 charger, an absolutely ludicrous assumption. This battery will do exactly what it's designed to do -- store wind energy that would otherwise be wasted. But

      • Yet another poster in over their head in science. 300 MW would provide three million homes with 100 watts indefinitely, not ten minutes. Without some measure of power capacity (MWh), you can't tell how long before it would run out of energy.

    • 300 mega Watts for 3.1 million homes is less than 100 Watts per home. I guess that no one is charging an EV at night.

      That’s an odd way to look at it. You seem to be implying that this battery is supposed to discharge all its stored energy across all of Scotland at once, which is not how grid-scale storage works. Its purpose is to absorb excess wind power that would otherwise go to waste and release it when demand is higher. Are you just confused, or are you trying to make storage sound useless when it’s actually a crucial part of decarbonizing the grid?

      • Quote:

        "It is due to be expanded to 300 megawatts by next year, enough to supply 3.1 million homes, more than every household in Scotland."

        If 300 megawatts can supply 3.1 million homes, that is less than 100 watts per home on average. There is no confusion on my part, and I was not in any way commenting on the need for storage. I don't know why you would think that I was. Perhaps you are confused. I was commenting on a statement that seems to me to make no sense.

        • So you have a hard time with conceptualizing analogous measurement for laymen with designed purpose. Got it.

          They didn't build this to power the whole country for 10 minutes. They built it to store excess generation to supplement spot power demand while also having the inherent capacity to grid stabilize that batteries provide.

          • And what does that have anything to do with me pointing out that the statement is nonsense?

            Where in that statement did you read anything about grid stabilization?

    • I think they missed a zero, as 1kw would be closer to an average load of a home.

  • ... an electric bicycle fire would be hard to put out.

  • Lithium Iron Phosphate is the primary chemistry used. That has a useable life of 5-15 years. I sure hope they're putting away money yearly for replacing the cells. They can't control the temperature very well or the charge rate necessarily, within reason, since it's wind. I'm sure it's not a free for all but I bet they've got some large BMSes on there too. So I bet it's closer to the 5 year side of things.

    • Man, it's a good thing you came along to tell them all of this, because apparently in your view no actual electrical engineers on the project could anticipate any of that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
        You clearly do not understand large government contracts. Spend the money now, get headlines and re-elections, plan $0 for maintenance, take out a loan and bankrupt the city/country when it does suddenly need "unexpected" maintenance. I'd cite as my sources on this one: most wins and solar projects in the US and Europe.
  • I remind the greens we Only have to build it due to renewables. Where a couple of baseline nuclear powerplants would cover the 80% and wind and solar usage could be moderated by a grid that communicates with the consumers.

    We have to keep adding these costs to the production cost of solar, batteries last 20+ years, Pumped storage, 100+ years.

    https://www.euronews.com/green... [euronews.com]

    Building a solar or wind project needs a storage project attached or we will never know what things cost. For the absolute

  • "300 megawatts by next year, enough to supply 3.1 million homes, more than every household in Scotland"

    So, that's a average of 97 Watts per household. Is that really sufficient or typical in Scotland? My family uses an average of 1.2 kW, and before charging two electric cars, it was about 500 W. But that's averaged over 24 hours in a day. The huge battery is most useful in providing extra power during peak usage times, so the target should be even higher than the average.

    • So you are saying that this battery is expected to keep the entire country running in the event of a total grid collapse?

      Don't you think that might be a little beyond the intended usage, and that this might be for the intended purpose of storing excess offshore wind generation for demand peaking while spinning up spot generation? I.e. exactly what these things are always installed for: grid stability?

      Do you think that electrical engineers working on such a project can't do that simple math? Or maybe the w

    • Should be 396 W per household (annualized instantaneous consumption), using the following data: 8694 GWh domestic electricity consumption in 2023 https://www.gov.scot/publicati... [gov.scot] divided by 2.5 million households https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/... [nrscotland.gov.uk]

  • Meanwhile in Central Europe they are building gigawatt dummy loads to burn off excess electricity. This is rather cheaper than batteries.
    • OK, burning excess electricity looks stupid, but it might suit well as an extreme measure. The real issue is that building this gets heavily subsidized - which really is perverse.

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