Booming pipeline of battery projects increases by two-thirds in last 12 months

2 May 2024  - RenewableUK press release

A new report published today by RenewableUK shows that the pipeline of battery projects has grown by two-thirds in capacity over the last year nationwide.

Battery storage is essential for providing the security and flexibility that will make our future energy system resilient and reliable. Effective use of battery storage will also provide energy system cost savings and benefits for businesses and consumers by enabling energy that is produced at times of high generation be stored and used during peak demand times.

Our latest EnergyPulse Energy Storage report shows that the total pipeline of battery projects (operational, under construction, consented or being planned) has increased from 57.1 gigawatts (GW) a year ago to 95.6GW, which is enough to fully charge more than 2.6 million electric vehicles, and an increase of 67.4% (38.5GW). This is the second consecutive twelve month period in which the pipeline has Increased by this percentage.

Operational battery storage capacity has grown to 4.4GW, and the capacity of projects under construction has reached 4.3GW. A further 30.4GW has been consented, 26GW has been submitted in the planning system and 30.4GW is at an early stage of development  but yet to be submitted. This chart shows the total UK battery project portfolio in megawatts (MW):

The average capacity of projects being submitted for planning permission has risen from 27MW in 2019 to 80MW now – an increase of 53MW or 196%.

A 50MW battery of 2 hours duration (100MWh) is enough to fully charge 1,400 electric vehicles.

The report is being published today to coincide with RenewableUK’s annual Grid & Storage conference in at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London.

RenewableUK’s Director of Future Electricity Systems Barnaby Wharton said:

“It’s great to see that, for the second year running, the UK’s battery storage pipeline has grown by two-thirds within the space of twelve months. The appetite among investors to enter this rapidly-growing market remains enormous.

“Batteries have a key role to play in ensuring that electricity supply always meets demand. While there has been significant uptake in projects, we are long way from delivering the 55GW of short-term flexibility by 2035 that the Government says we need in its Review of Electricity Market Arrangements. We have the potential to move much faster by speeding up the process of consenting and connecting vital energy storage projects to the grid.

“We’ve just published a report showing that building more battery projects alongside onshore wind and solar farms reduces electricity system costs by sharing land and grid connections, benefitting billpayers in the long term. 

By improving the planning system and introducing reforms to financial support mechanisms to encourage more battery projects to co-locate at sites where clean electricity is generated,  we can reduce the cost of building and running batteries significantly”.

(ends)

Notes

For further information, contact

Robert Norris, Head of Communications
07969 229 913 Robert.Norris@RenewableUK.com

1. RenewableUK’s members are building our future energy system, powered by clean electricity. We bring them together to deliver that future faster; a future which is better for industry, billpayers, and the environment. We support over 490 member companies to ensure increasing amounts of renewable electricity are deployed across the UK and to access export markets all over the world. Our members are business leaders, technology innovators, and expert thinkers from right across industry.
   
   


2. The statistics were compiled in April 2024.
   
   


3. Our EnergyPulse database aggregates publicly available data, which is usually presented in power (GW) rather than energy stored (GWh).
   This year’s report also includes modelled estimates of GWh statistics: where the GWh of a project is not known, and assuming that projects greater than 50MW have a 2-hour duration, with smaller projects having a 1-hour duration, we have modelled that the UK has a total pipeline of 180GWh of battery storage capacity. This includes 5.7GWh fully operational, 7.5GWh under construction, 59.3GWh consented, 48.2GWh in the planning system and 59.3GWh in pre-planning at an early stage of development.
   
   


4. RenewableUK’s full events programme is available here.