Battery energy storage played a part in helping the UK power grid recover more quickly from a blackout caused by the disconnection of 2 power plants, according to the sector.
On August 9th, when a blackout affected over a million electricity customers in the UK, batteries-were able to supply energy to the grid far more quickly than conventional fail-safe power plants.
The blackout was the result of first RWE’s Little Barford plant and then Orsted’s Hornsea off-sea wind farm disconnecting, taking with them 1.5GW of capacity offline.
The energy stored in batteries run by various operators were able to respond almost instantly to try to maintain transmission frequency which dropped from the usual 50HZ to 48.9Hz.
The stored energy capacity was not enough to prop the grid up, and the National Grid still had to cut off supply to large parts of the country. However, Tim Green, co-director at Imperial College London’s Energy Futures Laboratory, told Wired that the batteries had played a role in preventing a domino effect of disconnections.
”Anything you’ve got that comes in and provides a bit more power really saves you from going down that ladder and disconnecting more demand,” he said.
Once the demand was reduced and new generation came back online, batteries were then able to help balance the grid by taking excess power from it.