Statkraft unveils deal with RWE to manage Irish energy storage projects

Statkraft, also a leading provider of market access and optimisation services, has entered into the contract with RWE to provide overall market access and trading optimisation services, helping to maximise the value achieved from the battery storage projects across a range of services and markets.

Under EirGrid’s DS3 System Services programme, the battery energy storage projects will provide rapid frequency response and reserves to the national electricity grid within milli-seconds in the event of a sudden drop-off in generation or supply, in addition to being traded in the wholesale energy markets by Statkraft.

The sites will be critical in supporting Ireland’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system. This fast-responding, low-carbon flexibility will directly help to maintain system stability by rapid power injection or absorption whilst accommodating greater levels of renewable energy.

Nick Heyward, Head of Energy Storage for Statkraft said: “Building on the established track-record of optimisation of flexible assets in the UK and Europe, there has been significant work within Statkraft to further expand and improve the capabilities of UNITY and our Virtual Power Plant platform for Ireland. This will support RWE and other battery storage developers in Ireland in maximising the value from their energy storage project investments.

Through a combination of advanced algorithmic trading, with 24/7 expert ‘human’ trader supervision, our UNITY platform ensures that the storage flexibility is deployed and traded into the right markets at the right time. That might be DS3 System Services which are most valuable at times of highest renewables penetration, or periods of high volatility in the wholesale energy markets, where energy storage is well placed to support the balancing of the system at peak times.

This not only helps capture the most value today but also helps reduce risk and mitigate the impacts of any future changes in DS3 Services for RWE.”

RWE’s sites join around 500MW of third-party distributed flexible generation and battery storage capacity which Statkraft already optimises alongside nearly 4,000MW of pre-dominantly third-party renewables generation across Ireland and the UK. Statkraft’s fully automated trading platform, UNITY, integrates intermittent renewable generation and flexible assets in order to support customers, System Operators and the whole market to help accelerate the transition to a sustainable, zero-carbon future system.