Dive Brief:
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In its first time competing, energy storage won about 6% of the 52 GW of awards in the United Kingdom’s provisional capacity auction for winter 2020-21, Energy Storage news reports.
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A total of 3.2 GW of energy storage projects were among the winning bidders for the 15-year contracts.
- The winners included the 10-MW Cleator and 40-MW Glassenbury projects by Low Carbon, the 49-MW West Burton project being developed by EDF Energy Renewables, and the 10-MW Blackburn Meadows project being constructed in Sheffield by E.ON UK.
Dive Insight:
Wholesale power markets need a variety of services such as capacity, frequency response and voltage regulation that represents a significant market for energy storage, but in most instances those opportunities have been slow to unfold in the U.S., in large part because of regulatory barriers.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in November, for instance, issued a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking to more effectively integrate electric storage resources into wholesale power markets.
In the U.K., storage has made quicker inroads where several projects of a variety of sizes have secured long-term contracts that are usually awarded to generation projects. Anthony Price, director of the U.K.’s Electricity Storage Network, told Energy Storage News that “I think that a number of providers have become more comfortable with the idea of storage taking part.”
However, Price also expressed concern about a lack of clarity regarding the regulations governing the country’s capacity market, and he said he is advocating for continued pressure on policy-makers to provide greater clarity and rules to recognize the value of storage.
