The Neilston Greener Grid Park installation in Scotland, Statkraft’s first grid-forming battery, is now operating commercially, adding a grid resource intended to support stability as renewable power expands.
Statkraft said in a Nov. 13 announcement that Neilston is among the first projects of this type to reach commercial operation in Britain. The battery can provide stability services if network disruptions occur, the company said.
Barbara Flesche, Statkraft’s executive vice president for Europe, said renewable generation still needs to grow, alongside the grids, storage and flexible resources needed to use that electricity and maintain stable operations. “We still need significantly more renewable generation,” Flesche said. She described the UK as an early market for solutions that may also be needed elsewhere in Europe as renewable power grows.
Neilston is part of Statkraft’s broader portfolio of battery and synchronous compensator schemes in the UK and Ireland. The company said more than 2 GW of those projects are operating or under development. Statkraft’s investment in UK renewable-energy infrastructure has topped £2 billion since its 2006 market entry, the company said. Its activities in the country also include renewable generation, hydropower and energy markets.
The project sits within a wider cost argument from Statkraft: The company says gas often sets electricity prices, exposing power costs to fossil-fuel market spikes. It argues that expanding renewable generation can reduce that dependence and help steady costs during geopolitical disruptions.
Statkraft said gas set UK electricity prices about 90% of the time during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. The company said that frequency was down by one-third during the 2026 war in Iran as renewable generation grew. It also cited estimates that wind power reduced UK wholesale electricity costs by about one-third in 2025.
Kevin O’Donovan, Statkraft’s UK and Ireland Country Manager, said the wider challenge is to develop the electricity system at a pace that keeps up with renewable generation.
