SSE Renewable's 50MW battery storage facility in Wiltshire, England. Image: SSE Renewables
The energy company said that the project has the potential to power 115,000 Irish homes for up to two hours at a time.
SSE Renewables has secured the development rights for a large greenfield site in Co Offaly, in order to construct a battery storage site.
The energy company will develop a 120 megawatt (MW)/240 megawatt hour (MWh) grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) project at Thornsberry near Tullamore.
The project was acquired from Grid Systems Services Limited, a developer of grid-scale battery storage projects in Ireland owned by Low Carbon, which is based in the UK.
Low Carbon first began developing the Thornsberry project in 2018, and according to SSE, the site could be operational by the end of decade if approved for final delivery.
SSE said that the site has a grid connection offer to connect 120MW of import/export capacity to Ireland’s national grid via an adjacent existing 110kV substation and the proposed battery system would be capable of storing up to 240MWh of energy for flexible dispatch at times of peak demand.
This means the site would be capable of providing back-up energy to the equivalent of about 115,000 Irish homes for up to two hours at a time, while also delivering essential balancing services to Ireland’s energy system, SSE claims.
“The midlands has a long and proud tradition of supporting Ireland’s energy security,” said Heather Donald, director of Onshore Wind, Solar and Battery for Ireland and the UK at SSE.
“With the development of new onshore wind, solar and battery projects such as Thornsberry, the region can continue to play a significant role in delivering homegrown energy for Irish consumers while decarbonising the country’s power system.”
The addition of the Thornsberry project grows SSE’s secured battery pipeline in Ireland to 300MW, as part of a wider 1.8 gigawatt (GW) pipeline across Ireland and the UK.
Last year, SSE Renewables announced that it was planning to develop a solar farm and a BESS in Co Wexford. The company already has an 18 turbine wind farm, called Richfield Wind Farm, located at Bridgetown in the county.
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