Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has become the UK’s largest battery storage investor, with the start of construction of two new Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), which will be the largest of their kind in Europe.
CIP issued the notice to commence construction via its flagship fund CI IV. CIP manages 12 funds and has to date raised approximately €31 billion for investments in energy and associated infrastructure from more than 180 international institutional investors.
The two BESS projects are both based in Scotland: Coalburn 2 in South Lanarkshire, adjacent to CIP’s existing Coalburn 1 BESS project, and Devilla in Fife, near the town of Kincardine.
The two latest projects represent an investment of approximately £800 million.
All three projects in CIP’s BESS portfolio (Coalburn 1, Coalburn 2, and Devilla) will have total power capacity of 1.5GW and will be able to store and supply the grid with a total of 3GWh of electricity, equivalent to the electricity demand of over 4.5 million households, across a 2-hour period.
Nischal Agarwal, partner at CIP, said: “Battery storage, which is well located, like our Coalburn and Devilla projects, enhances energy security, provides the grid with much needed flexibility and enables low cost renewables to be deployed faster.”
According to the International Energy Agency, battery storage can alleviate grid congestion in times of high supply, offering an outlet to capture and store excess renewable electricity that would otherwise be lost.
Growth in batteries outpaced almost all other clean energy technologies in 2023 as falling costs, advancing innovation and supportive industrial policies helped drive up demand. Yet batteries still need to lead a sixfold increase in global energy storage to enable the world to meet 2030 targets, the agency said.
