Whitelee Wind Farm Gets Ion-Lithium Battery Storage System

Spanish company Ingeteam was chosen by Iberdrola to supply its largest battery storage system as a back-up for the UK's biggest onshore wind farm at Whitelee near Glasgow. Its storage capacity will be 50 million Watt-hours, equivalent to the average hourly power consumption of 150,000 homes.

Ingeteam is to supply the control system, the power converters and the ion-lithium batteries. The facility is intended mainly to expand the wind farm's ability to manage the energy delivered to the grid at all times. With the type of storage system to be installed at the Whitelee wind farm, Iberdrola will be able to take part in the frequency regulation market of the UK national grid. It will also serve to assure supply capacity with an optimal balance of generation and consumption, and will enable the wind farm to be commissioned with its grid powered down and isolated from the main grid.  

The wind farm is expected to come online at the end of this year, with testing to ensure compliance with TSO grid code (UK electric system operator) due to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.