The technology enables renewables at scale, “while ensuring the grid remains stable and resilient”, he explains. But there are challenges to effective operation in the Irish market and a much-changed scenario in Europe because of an energy crisis exacerbated by the Ukraine war.
Operators of battery storage plants could have cut some €35 million off energy bills on the island of Ireland this winter if they were allowed to sell electricity on to the wholesale market, he says “Ireland has to move to actioning now, to meet those KPIs [key performance indicators] in the climate action plan,” he says, and to accommodate buildout of renewables in a future scenario where there is more capacity than demand in the country to ensure it can become a clean-energy exporter.
Battery storage needs to be acknowledged as a different asset class, he says, requiring high capital expenditure and low operational expenditure – the opposite to gas generation – and longer contracts. Fluence, a joint venture between Siemens and AES, employs more than 1,000 people and has 5.5GW of battery energy storage deployed or contracted across more than 205 projects – 11 in the Republic, four of which are with the ESB. In the Republic, it has commissioned more than 107 megawatts of battery storage and is contracted to/constructing a further 335MW.