Gigha Watts Wind Energy to be Stored

The aptly named Scottish island of Gigha is going to be the centre of an experiment that aims to crack one of the major technical problems associated with wind power; how to store it. This attempt at a practical solution involves building giant batteries holding 75,000 litres of H2SO4-sulphuric acid mixed with vanadium pentoxide. It’s a £2.5 million project which should allow power generated from the island’s turbines to be stored for use when insufficient wind energy is being generated.

Gigha wind farm credit Scottish government 300x2161 Gigha Watts Wind Energy to be Stored

At present, the power generated by the turbines is used by the households on the island.  When the winds are high, any excess electricity generated is transferred by cable to the mainland of Scotland’s electricity grid. When the winds are low and the turbines are not generating sufficient power for the islanders, the grid provides power back to the island through the cable. The cable has a maximum power capacity and any excess power created on the island when the winds are high that exceeds the cable’s capacity, is wasted. The Department of Energy & Climate Change backed project plans to overcome this problem with a new type of battery storage system.

REDT is the company that has been awarded the contract and Sir John Samuel, Head of Business Development said:

It is not easy to store electricity on a large scale, standard lead-acid batteries generally lose their charge relatively quickly. The battery system we are involved with does not suffer from this problem. The crucial point is that our batteries will be able to be used over and over again.”

JS 1201 Gigha Watts Wind Energy to be Stored

The plan is for the batteries to be capable of storing enough power to provide the island with 100kW of electricity for 12 hours when winds are low.

Scotland is a wind energy-rich country and has great potential for wave and tide power too, but electricity cable links are poor and would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade to all remote islands and highlands there. Consequently, battery storage systems are the way to go to help Scotland reach its ambitious goal of making all its electricity renewable by 2020.