BW ESS said the first phase of its Hams Hall battery in England entered commercial operation with 350 MW of power capacity and 1,243 MWh of storage, bringing on a grid resource intended to help balance supply as renewable output varies.
The site is beside National Grid’s Hams Hall substation in the West Midlands. BW ESS announced the start of operations Nov. 2 and described the project as Europe’s largest operational battery by storage capacity. The operating unit is the first phase; the company has outlined a later expansion.
BW ESS said commercial operation followed energization by 20 days. Sungrow, the equipment supplier, also described a 20-day commissioning interval in a Nov. 4 release, counting from grid connection. Wills Bros, the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, said 400-kilovolt transformers were energized and the site connected to National Grid on Sept. 30. ESS News separately reported project energization around Oct. 13. The accounts identify different starting milestones and do not specify how they relate to the 20-day count.
The installation uses Sungrow’s PowerTitan 2.0 system. Sungrow said site engineering, preparation during warm commissioning and coordination with BW ESS helped move the process along. James Li, Sungrow’s vice president for Europe, said the supplier’s team worked alongside BW ESS during commissioning. BW ESS said testing involved Sungrow, Energy-IO, National Grid and the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
BW ESS plans a second phase that would increase the site’s power capacity to 400 MW and storage capacity to 1,424 MWh. The company estimates that at full capacity, the battery could support the electricity needs of about 1.3 million homes for up to 3.5 hours. BW ESS has not announced a completion date for the expansion.
The first phase has a 10-year floor and optimization agreement with EDF, which BW ESS says underpins long-term revenue. Hams Hall is also part of BW ESS’s 2.6-gigawatt-hour Ardenham portfolio, co-owned with AIP Management, the company said.
