Statkraft is to provide market access and trading optimisation for battery storage assets being developed by RWE in Ireland.
The battery storage assets – with a collective capacity of over 68MW – are to provide rapid frequency response and reserves to the national electricity grid in the event of a sudden drop off in generation or supply, as part of Irish transmission operator EirGrid’s DS3 system services programme.
Statkraft has its own battery storage contracted with EirGrid though the DS3 flexibility market, completing its 11MW project in January 2020.
The company is to also trade RWE’s battery storage assets – located in the Dublin and Monaghan counties – in the wholesale energy markets.
Nick Heyward, head of energy storage for Statkraft, explained that a combination of advanced algorithmic trading, 24/7 expert trader supervision and the company’s automated trading platform UNITY ensures flexibility is deployed and traded “in the right markets at the right time”.
This could be in DS3 – which Heyward said is most valuable at times of highest renewable penetration – or it might be in the wholesale markets, where energy storage is well placed to support the balancing of the system at peak times.
In the UK, National Grid launched its own a frequency response service in October, Dynamic Containment, with Flexitricity and Arenko the first companies to participate following an interconnector tripping within the services first week.
Several frequency events have occurred on the UK grid over the past few years as a result of interconnectors tripping, with battery storage helping to restore frequency to the usual levels in June 2019 following the French interconnector tripping and in February 2020 when the Belgian interconnector tripped.