Kiwi Power has commissioned the final 5MW of capacity at South Somerset District Council’s 30MW Fideoak Mill battery storage installation in Taunton.
Kiwi Power’s proprietary hardware, Fruit, was installed on all 22 battery units, installed by Opium Power, so that the £12m asset can provide grid balancing services to National Grid ESO in any of the grid operator’s 15 flexibility markets.
In June, Kiwi Power commissioned the first 25MW of the project four days.
Kiwi Power head of optimisation Thomas Jennings said: “Councils across the UK are seeking to make the most out of their sustainability and carbon emissions investments as they seek to meet increasingly stringent targets.
“Landmark projects such as Fideoak are vital for demonstrating how investments in battery storage and renewables are value adding and income generating.”
The site is unusual in the fact that the site controller must be able to simultaneously shut off all batteries with immediate effect in response to a constraint signal from Western Power Distribution.
To facilitate this, Kiwi Power developed a solution based on its proprietary technology that could interpret the incoming signal and simultaneous dispatch it to each of the 22 units on site.
Opium Power director David Owen said: “Our partnership with South Somerset District Council and Kiwi Power has worked extremely well.
“The 30MW Taunton battery energy storage system is the first of several very exciting joint ventures with local authorities and private sector investors that Opium Power is progressing to deliver stability to a sustainably powered grid.
“We currently have an additional 110MW in design and build on three new battery storage systems, and we intend to work with Kiwi Power on all of them.”
