Enel has bought the Tynemouth battery storage project from Element Power.
The construction-ready project is supported by a four-year EFR contract to provide grid balancing services to National Grid, with a price of around £12/MWh.
Enel bought 100% of the shares in Tynemouth Energy Storage Limited from the European energy developer and operator Element Power. Enel said it expected its total investment in the site, including the purchase price and construction, to be around €20m.
Enrico Viale, head of Enel’s global thermal generation division, said: “Due to the increasing role of renewable energy sources, the growing need of grid balancing services and the fast reduction of technology costs, the BESS [battery energy storage systems] market is expected to grow exponentially in all geographies in the next years. For this reason, Tynemouth represents for Enel an opportunity to gain experience and strategic knowledge in building such projects, which can then be applied to other markets”.
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