On Aug 9, 2019, the United Kingdom's worst power failure in the last 10 years happened, with more than 1 million users losing power. It was a Friday evening, a peak power consumption period. The power cutoff led to delays and shutdowns of several underground lines and main railways around London and in Wales. Traffic lights in some regions were out of order, which caused serious traffic chaos.
Nowadays, the British Minety Battery Energy Storage Project developed by China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. is playing a role as a "charger", storing the spare power generated during the day time for night use. The project has greatly replenished the number of flexible power grid facilities in the country and helps avoid power cutoffs.
Located near Minety Town, Wiltshire, about 140 kilometers west of London, the project is currently the largest power grid-side individual battery energy storage station in Europe and the first large-scale battery energy storage project that a Chinese enterprise has built in a developed country. The main equipment of the project was manufactured and assembled by Chinese enterprises, with a China-made rate exceeding 70 percent. The project provides power grid peak load regulation, fast frequency response, a balancing system and capacity market control, and increases renewable energy consumption in the country as a contribution to realizing the UK's target of bringing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
A design image of the entire Minety Battery Energy Storage Project in the UK [Photo provided to sasac.gov.cn]
Battery energy storage improved flexibility and security of power grid
China Huaneng in Hong Kong was sensitive enough to see the importance of battery energy storage to carbon reduction and the promising future of the technology in 2017. Adhering to its original aspiration of contributing Chinese efforts to global energy transformation, the company established a work group with CNIC Corporation Limited to promote development of a battery energy storage project in the UK. After comprehensive analysis of several projects, the group targeted the Minety project which had the largest scale and the best location.
A view of the battery containers at the Minety Battery Energy Storage Project [Photo provided to sasac.gov.cn]
Such a large-scale individual battery energy storage project was unprecedented and relevant industrial standards were still improving. China Huaneng Group Hong Kong Ltd. could only make attempts in various functional areas such as project standards and commercial modes. The project team inked a battery energy storage purchase contract with Shell as a minimum guarantee, which was a first in the British market. Considering both Chinese management and local construction demands, the project adopted the EPC method of purchasing by category instead of entrusting the EPC suppliers to carry out a turnkey operation, which guaranteed building quality while reducing costs.
The launch ceremony for construction of the project was held on schedule on Dec 5, 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic broke out around the world soon after, bringing great challenge to manufacturing of the equipment and construction of the project. Adhering to the enterprise's spirit of "carving out ways in mountains and building bridges over rivers", China Huaneng Group Hong Kong Ltd. completed the project so that it could start commercial operation on June 30, 2021 with the cooperation of local engineering and supervising companies.
Protecting local creatures to the smallest detail
With beautiful scenery, Minety is home to two rare butterflies in the UK – the swamp fritillary and Hypochrysops. To reduce impact on the local ecological environment by the construction and operation of the project, ecological experts gave a detailed and complete assessment of the surrounding area before construction began, which showed that the project would harm neither local trees nor the two kinds of rare butterflies.
A view of the Minety project and trees near the project [Photo provided to sasac.gov.cn]
Joining hands and striding to a green future
On July 16, 2021, a BBC report said that "The biggest storage battery in Europe has been switched on in a field in north Wiltshire. The battery will store excess energy generated from renewable sources and feed it into the National Grid. It is hoped it will be the first in a string of similar installations across the country."
As a model of Sino-UK cooperation in the energy field, the Minety project was included in the World Economic Forum Insight Report 2022, explaining how the public utility battery energy storage technology overcomes intermittent shortages of the renewable energy to guarantee stable power grid operation. On Jan 19, 2022, the project was rewarded the outstanding contribution award of green cooperation by the China Chamber of Commerce in the UK.
The Minety project is a key step in China Huaneng's promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative. The company gained a great deal of construction and operation experience in large-scale battery energy storage projects and will continue to "charge" Sino-UK economic and trade cooperation in building a greener future.
(Executive editor: Li Zhiyong)
