The system is the largest of its kind in Ireland to date and was opened last week ahead of its official opening and photo-op with representatives from the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) and battery system integrator Fluence. , started operation in November 2023.
The facility is located at the Poolbeg Energy Hub and ESB (approximately 95% owned by the State of Ireland with the remainder held by staff) will use a combination of clean energy technologies including offshore wind, hydrogen and battery storage. We are planning to introduce it. The next 10 years.
Eamon Ryan said: “Energy storage facilities, such as this large battery factory at ESB’s flagship facility in Poolbeg, will be at the heart of Ireland’s new renewable energy transition and help balance the new homegrown electricity supply. It will play an important role in achieving this goal.”
The minister added that “no power system can operate without backup” but that Ireland, which shares the grid with Northern Ireland’s neighbours, has traditionally been powered by fossil fuel generation.
“But in the future, energy storage projects can increase the production of wind and solar power and use it to support the system, rather than relying on dirty and expensive coal and gas.” said Ryan.
Fast-response assets store energy produced by renewables and output it to balance the power grid when needed.
Building a €300 million BESS portfolio for ESBs
The new two-hour lithium-ion (Li-ion) assets are part of the BESS portfolio in which ESB is investing approximately €300 million (US$323.5 million).
Fluence has partnered with mechanical and electrical contractor Kirby Group and high-voltage and medium-voltage engineering services group Powercomm, both Irish companies, to act as technology provider and integrator for all of these.
As reported by our sister site Solar Power Portal, the first projects were announced in early 2021 at sites in Inchcore (30MW/60MWh), Co Cork, Dublin (30MW/60MWh) and Agada, Co Cork (19MW/38MWh). . The 150MWh Poolbeg BESS was announced later that year along with another 30MW/60MWh asset, also in Southwall, County Dublin, taking the development portfolio at the time to a total of 308MWh.
The Agada project was initially scheduled to become operational in the summer of 2022. ESB announced last week that the remaining projects are expected to be operational this year.
Jim Dollard, Executive Director of Generation and Trading at ESB, said: “Today marks another important milestone for ESB. We are launching the latest fast-acting, grid-scale battery units to help supply
The country’s first grid-scale battery project came online in 2020, and more projects were rapidly developed thereafter, mainly driven by transmission operator EirGrid’s DS3 ancillary service market. By early 2021, ESB’s projects were already one of its development pipelines reaching 2.5GW.
Additionally, our colleagues at Solar Media Market Research, who are currently producing the Republic of Ireland Battery Storage Projects Database Report, say that there are currently 545MW and 609MWh of utility-scale BESS projects already in operation in the Republic of Ireland. The development pipeline has reached 6.3GW, with 4.7GW of planned projects approved.
Ireland aims to achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and, as a member of the European Union, launched a national energy and climate plan in December last year aimed at bringing the EU in line with greenhouse gas emissions. (NECP) has submitted a draft (GHG) emission target. The ESB itself targets net-zero emissions from its activities by 2040.
Solar Media, publisher of Energy-Storage.news, will host the 9th Annual Energy Storage Summit EU on 20-21 February 2024 in London. This year it has moved to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policy makers, developers, utilities and energy companies. Buyers and service providers all in one place. Please see the official website for details.