Toshiba Corp. has been selected to provide the battery for the United Kingdom’s first 2MW scale lithium-titanate battery based Energy Storage System (ESS) to support grid management. The company’s 1MWh SCiB™ battery will be installed in a primary substation in central England in September.
Large-scale ESS are increasingly seen as a versatile solution in managing electricity supply. Installed in wind and photovoltaic generation systems, ESS can help to overcome intermittent output and frequency fluctuations, as well as performing peak power buffering, and when connected to the grid they can support grid stability and reinforcement. This role in grid management will be investigated in the UK, in the Grid Connected Energy Storage Research Demonstrator project, led by the University of Sheffield, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with support from both industrial and academic partners.
The ESS will be connected to the 11kV grid at Western Power Distribution’s Willenhall primary substation, near Wolverhampton in the West Midlands. When the project starts operation in November this year, it will allow testing at realistic levels, and allow assessment of both the technical and economic potential of ESS in the grid.
Toshiba’s SCiB™ is a lithium-titanate based secondary battery, fast charging and discharging in a wide range of temperature conditions; capability to withstand over 10,000 charge-discharge cycles; and high level reliability and operational safety, particularly in terms of low risk of fire, a danger associated with other lithium-ion batteries. ESS based on Toshiba's SCiB™ provide a solution where high performance and long life are required, for example in the provision of efficient and effective frequency regulation.
Toshiba is promoting battery-based ESS globally as a support for stable power networks, supplying several projects in Japan and around the world, and has already received orders for commercial systems in Italy and Japan, where it has supplied batteries for a 40MW ESS, among the world's largest.
There is a growing global demand for secure, economical and high quality supply of clean electrical power. Toshiba believes that its range of Smart Grid technologies, including ESS based on SCiB™, will assist in meeting that demand, through support for grid stability and utilization of renewable energy generation systems. Toshiba will continue to develop innovative solutions to support the reliable supply of electrical power, and expects to expand its large-scale battery energy storage systems business in the global market.
