Battery energy storage
Energy innovation
The Energy Superhub Oxford will install the UK’s first transmission-connected battery, sited at National Grid’s Cowley Substation
The ‘hybrid’ Lithium-ion/vanadium flow battery will enable load shifting for overnight charging of fleet vehicles and the opportunity to provide services to National Grid and to trade on energy markets.
The Optimisation and Trading Engine will deliver specialist battery trading software, enabling the battery to trade on the Day Ahead and Intraday markets and the Balancing Mechanism.
Hybrid battery
The battery consists of a 50MW Wartsila lithium-ion battery and a 2MW Invinity Energy Systems vanadium flow battery. These will be controlled by a combined energy management system which will communicate with the Optimisation and Trading Engine (OTE) which will decide the optimum charge/discharge schedule for the battery.
This combination provides synergies for supporting National Grid’s frequency response tenders, allowing the vanadium flow (which doesn’t degrade) to do much of the heavy lifting in providing a frequency response service together with the lithium-ion, thus reducing degradation on the lithium-ion.
Vanadium flow technology
Invinity Energy System’s Vanadium flow battery provides flexibility and longevity for the ESO storage solution. Specific benefits include:
Long lifetime
Use for over 25 years without storage capacity degrading
Safe and non-flammable
Safe, non-toxic chemistry with no risk of thermal runaway
Innovative overdrive technology
ESO will showcase new overdrive technology to improve its flexibility in a range of different use cases.
Vanadium flow chemistry
Project plan
ESO is a three-year project, launched in April 2019. 2020/21 is key for the project’s construction phase, and the project should be fully live by mid-2021.
The latest
24 November 2020
Kensa Contracting webinar and virtual site tour
ESO partner, Kensa Contracting, recently hosted a webinar and virtual site tour, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the installation of their innovative ‘shoebox’ ground source heat pumps…
19 November 2020
BBC visit to Blackbird Leys
17 November 2020
ESO in conversation: Andrew Luers, Habitat Energy
04 November 2020