Europe’s largest battery site, located in Blackhillock, Scotland, has begun commercial operations with the first phase of the project now live.

Developed, owned and operated by Zenobē, the project has an initial capacity of 200MW, but will be followed by a further 100MW in 2026, making a total of 300MW/600MWh.

Located between Inverness and Aberdeen to address grid congestion from Viking (443 MW), Moray East (950 MW) and Beatrice (588 MW) offshore wind farms, the project increases the storage now available. Battery storage plays a critical role in the UK’s net-zero transition with over 22GW required as a minimum in the Government’s Clean Power 2030 Plan.

In addition to being Europe’s largest battery, the Blackhillock site will be the first in the world to provide Stability Services to the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to make renewable power more secure and reliable. Wärtsilä is supplying its Quantum energy storage system technology and GEMS Digital Energy Platform with SMA grid forming inverters enabling a resilient power system with high power quality. Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) delivered the grid connection required for the site to harness the renewable energy on its transmission network.

EDF Wholesale Market Services will be the Route to Market provider for the site, through its trading platform, Powershift. This platform combined with Zenobē’s battery optimisation experts will build more flexibility into the grid, essential to reducing wind curtailment and accelerating the decarbonisation of the network.

Fintan Slye, CEO of the National Energy System Operator, said: “Our 2025 ambition to enable zero carbon operation of Great Britain’s national electricity network is central to NESO’s mission. The delivery by Zenobe of this grid forming battery is a major accomplishment and brings us a step closer to this goal. Battery storage is critical to the future reliability and affordability of the UK grid and pairing it with this grid forming technology can unlock even greater resilience for a net-zero network.”

---