S&C Electric has announced that Europe's largest battery-storage project has been officially opened at Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, England.
S&C Electric Europe, Samsung SDI and Younicos collaborated to deploy the technology onto a United Kingdom Power Networks substation. The fully automated 6MW/10MWh Smarter Network Storage (SNS) project will assess the role of energy storage in supporting the UK's Carbon Plan. S&C Electric Europe is the lead supplier to the GBP 18.7 million project, drawing on its experience deploying energy storage projects. Berlin-based Younicos contributed custom-built software architecture and components. By providing frequency regulation as well as load shifting, the project will stabilise the grid more effectively than traditional thermal generators, providing more space on the grid for clean, but intermittent, renewable energies. The project will explore the capabilities and value in alternative revenue streams for storage, while also deferring expensive conventional reinforcement measures, such as transformers, cable and overhead lines. The Smarter Network Storage project was awarded funding of GBP 13.2 million by Ofgem in December 2012 under The Low Carbon Networks (LCN) Fund scheme, and will last four years, from January 2013 to December 2016.
