Highview Power to build Europe’s largest energy storage plant

Cryogenic energy storage pioneer Highview Power, a past winner in The Engineer Innovation Award, has announced plans to build its first full-scale plant – which will also be the largest energy storage plant in Europe – at a decommissioned thermal power station site in the North of England. Known as a Cryobattery, the site will have a capacity of 50 MW/250 MWh, Highview says.

Announced at the BloombergNEF summit in London yesterday by Highview CEO Javier Cavarda, the plant will use technology demonstrated at a pilot plant in Slough and developed further at a demonstration plant in Manchester. Highview’s technology uses excess energy, such as that generated by renewable sources, which cannot be sent immediately to the grid to liquefy air and store the liquid until the electricity is needed and can be distributed. At this point, the liquid air is allowed to evaporate and expand through a turbine, where its latent energy of vaporisation is converted into electric current.