Statoil Launches Battery Storage for Offshore Wind

A new battery storage solution for offshore wind energy will be piloted in the world’s first floating wind farm, the Hywind pilot park off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Batwind will be developed in co-operation with Scottish universities and suppliers, under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Edinburgh on March 18 between Statoil, the Scottish Government, the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.

Battery storage has the potential to mitigate intermittency and optimize output. This can improve efficiency and lower costs for offshore wind. The pilot in Scotland will provide a technological and commercial foundation for the implementation of Batwind in full-scale offshore wind farms, opening new commercial opportunities in a growing market.

Statoil will install a 1MWh lithium battery based storage pilot system in late 2018. This equals the battery capacity of more than two million iPhones.

The pilot will be part of Hywind Scotland, an innovative offshore wind park with five floating wind turbines located 25 kilometers (15 miles) offshore Peterhead. The wind park is currently under construction and start of electricity production is expected in late 2017.

A structured program is now being established under the MoU to support and fund innovation in the battery storage area between Statoil and Scottish industry and academia. This program will be managed by ORE Catapult and Scottish Enterprise.

A recent industry and government report, produced by the Carbon Trust, concluded that if the energy market was adapted to appropriately recognize the benefits of electricity storage to the wider system, this could lead to savings of up to £50 ($72) a year on an average energy bill and a system wide saving of up to £2.4 billion ($3.5 billion) a year by 2030.