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Due to growing demand, changing consumption and increasing intermittency due to renewable generation on the electricity network, we need energy storage to help balance the grid and store energy for times of peak demand.

Most renewable sources are intermittent so cannot be relied on alone to provide continuous power. This is usually overcome by having a mixed portfolio of generation sources which include some non-intermittent fossil or nuclear sources and more frequently nowadays, storage. However, it’s possible that future energy generation will include a mixture of nuclear combined with renewables backed up by energy storage.

We are referring to energy storage systems with durations upwards of 4 hours up to days at a time. Long duration is required for applications related to security of supply (e.g. Capacity Markets, Black Start, network investment deferral) and renewable curtailment reduction, and when the revenue stack includes at least one of these applications.

Long duration storage provides greater resilience for gaps in renewables production, so provides for a greater penetration of intermittent renewable power. In addition, long duration storage provides more reserve power to cover for unexpected events on the system (e.g. failures in other power plants) and so contributes to maintaining energy independence whilst supporting increased sustainability of the grid.

A long duration storage technology needs to be low cost, long lived, freely locatable, flexible and environmentally friendly. Cryogenic energy storage fulfils all of these characteristics.

Highview Power undertakes techno-economic feasibility studies for clients, engineering services including preliminary design, Front End Engineering and Design, and in many cases detailed design work. The preferred delivery vehicle for a project is to work with a large delivery partner, EPC and/or OEM to support the successful delivery of a cryogenic energy storage plant. The technology is ultimately licenced to the delivery vehicle and the associated consortium, in which Highview may or may not remain a participant.

Similarly to thermal power plants, a cryogenic energy storage plants construction would be managed by an EPC contractor unless the client has the resources internally to manage the project.

Highview Power has long-standing relationships with all global large machinery manufacturers, including licence agreements and collaboration agreements with large blue-chip organisations. We have several framework agreements in place with large multi-national EPC organisations to facilitate the roll-out and long-term support infrastructure for the technology.

Since the company was founded in 2005, Highview Power has benefitted from ~£12m of government funding, mostly through funding competitions run by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), formerly the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. Highview Power has also run a successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Brighton; the KTP associate has since been employed by Highview Power and is now firmly embedded in the Engineering team.