Ørsted’s new
battery farm which is being labelled the “blueprint for the future”
is set to come online as early as next year.

Located in the
UK’s eastern region, near Norwich, the 300MW/600MWh battery energy storage
system (BESS) is the onshore component of the Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm.

Dubbed “Boudica”,
it will store energy produced at the 1.2GW wind farm via a cable network
that stretches some 30 miles through the Norfolk countryside.

Bridgit Hartland-Johnson,
chief specialist of system integration at Ørsted, called the project a
“blueprint for the future”, and said a number of similar projects
are entering the pipeline elsewhere.

The BESS development
is the result of three years of collaboration between Ørsted, NESO and
National Grid Electricity Transmission, and was designated a Pathfinder
project by the UK government’s Offshore Transmission Network Review.

OTNR aimed to
improve coordination between projects to incorporate increasing amounts
of renewable energy coming onto the network.

John Twomey, director
of customer connections at National Grid Electricity Transmission, said:
“Co-locating assets in this way can help maximise the benefits of
new renewable generation planning to connect to the electricity network,
ensuring excess wind power can be stored and used when needed.”

Ørsted currently
operates more than 5GW of offshore wind capacity and has an additional
5GW under construction or in development in the UK.

To access more information on subsea
cables for offshore wind and interconnector projects, as well as transmission
intelligence, click
here.