CURRENT STATUS OF NATIONAL POWER's ENERGY STORAGE USINESS - A NEW PLANT DEVELOPMENT THAT CAN BE ESPATCHED TO ENHANCE RETURNS AND INCREASE ASSET TILISATION VALUE.

摘要

Innogy Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of National Power PLC{sup}1, has developed a novel electricity storage technology based on a Regenerative Fuel Cell. Following a successful development programme, construction is underway on a 15 MW / 120 MWh utility scale energy storage plant alongside the 680 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power station at Little Barford in the UK. The energy storage plant with a nominal 6 kV link, will be capable of providing black start to the station as well as arbitrage, frequency and voltage support to the grid system. It will be housed in a low-rise building, on a compact site of less than 3000 m{sup}2. This generic design may be replicated for a number of applications within the power industry such as energy management, ancillary services or integration with renewables. The Regenesys system is a new energy storage technology, offering great flexibility in its power and energy storage rating. It has a high speed of response, supplies real and reactive power and is therefore suited to many different applications on a power system. The technology is environmentally benign, modular, comparatively easy to site and separates the power rating from the energy storage capacity. These features make it suitable for energy storage applications in the 5 - 500 MW range which require discharge times from fractions of a second to 12 hours or more. A storage plant with these characteristics will provide an operator of a power network with significant technical and commercial benefits. The commercial benefits accrue from more efficient use of plant (generation, transmission and distribution) and technical benefits from improved system performance. This paper provides a background to the Regenesys system and highlights the current status of the technology under construction at Little Barford Power Station.