Developer Carlton Power has entered into a joint venture agreement with Highview Power to build and operate the world’s first commercial liquid air storage system – a 250 MWh long duration, cryogenic energy storage system – that can power 200 000 homes for 5 hours a day.
The two companies have created a joint-venture company, named Carlton Highview Storage, to build the system, known as the CRYOBattery, at the Trafford Energy Park, 8 miles south of Manchester, UK, and plan to co-develop up to four similar projects in the UK. The Trafford Energy Park facility will be the largest battery storage system of its kind in Europe. A £10m grant from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will support the development.
Construction is expected to start later this year and the project should enter commercial operation in 2022, supplying cost-efficient long-duration energy storage to the National Grid. It will be able to provide grid services to help integrate renewable energy, stabilise the regional electrical grid, and help ensure future energy security during blackouts and other disruptions.,
It will use existing substation and transmission infrastructure, with its income derived from several markets, including arbitrage (buying electricity when prices are low and selling it when prices are high), grid balancing, the capacity market, and ancillary services such as frequency response and voltage support.
