Highview Power has announced plans to build a 2.5GWh Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) plant at Hunterston in Ayrshire as part of its second phase of Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) projects across the UK.
The announcement was made during a meeting at Scotland House in London with the First Minister for Scotland, John Swinney.
The Hunterston project is expected to be the largest LAES facility globally, delivering an eight-fold increase in storage capacity compared to Highview’s Carrington plant in Manchester.
The facility is designed to provide power for up to 650,000 homes for 12.5 hours, addressing grid constraints and enhancing the stability of Scotland’s renewable energy supply.
John Swinney said: “Scotland presents a unique environment for innovation and deployment of storage technologies and this ground-breaking project will bring hundreds of high skilled jobs to the region both during construction and afterwards in supporting the supply chain.”
Richard Butland, Chief Executive at Highview Power, said. “This project will be transformational for Scotland in providing critical storage for offshore wind and solving grid constraints as well as delivering major investment in Ayrshire, and the wider region.”
Julian Leslie, Director of Strategic Energy Planning and Chief Engineer, NESO, added: “Technology such as Highview Power’s LDES proposals will quite simply unlock the power of renewable energy in our energy system, stabilise our grid system, and allow for the delivery of a 100% zero carbon electricity system.
“In our Holistic Transition Pathway, we have identified a 81GWh requirement for LDES by 2030 to decarbonise the grid and this announcement paves the way to realise this goal.”
