Entech, the technology company specialised in smart renewable energy storage and management, has just received an order from Engie Laborelec for a battery storage system to be installed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) off the island of Eday, in the Orkney archipelago, in the north of Scotland.
This order is part of the FORWARD2030 project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and developed by a consortium led by Orbital Marine Power, a tidal stream turbine pioneer. The 1.2MW/1.5MWh Lithium-ion battery storage system supplied by Entech is designed to explore the benefits of co-location of storage with tidal stream energy to meet evolving grid system requirements in response to higher penetrations of renewable energy and towards developing additional project revenue streams. This will demonstrate the technological and economic potential of co-location with a view to its deployment on a larger scale across Europe.
Tidal power, which harnesses the energy of marine currents, is one of the renewable marine energies. Excluding offshore wind, these account for less than 0.1% of the global energy mix: the objectives set out with the European Green Deal require the current marine renewables production capacity to be multiplied by 25 by 2050. To achieve this, tidal energy technologies need to make the transition to industrial-scale development. The FORWARD2030 project, deployed under real-life conditions, is one of the most advanced worldwide for this type of energy.
For Christopher Franquet, Entech’s Chairman and CEO: “This project for EMEC in Scotland is our second collaboration with ENGIE Laborelec following the commissioning of SPORE project in Singapore last year. It illustrates the quality of our solutions, as well as our capacity for innovation on international research projects”.
“Installation of the Entech storage solution will allow us to use the EMEC site in Orkney as a “real environment test laboratory” furthering other elements of the project and answering the needs of large-scale commercial offshore projects in the future” says Fiona Buckley, Wind & Hydro – Senior Expert & Senior Project Manager, LABORELEC.
