Spencer Group has secured a £23m contract to design the site layout and deliver the enabling works and civils for the UK’s first commercial scale liquid air long-duration energy storage facility.
The £300m development by Highview Power, at Trafford Energy Park in Carrington (Manchester), will store surplus electricity generated from wind and solar and will be the first commercial-scale plant in the UK deploying pioneering liquid air energy storage technology.
Developed by Highview Power in the UK over the past 17 years, the technology enables renewable energy to be stored for several weeks, longer than battery technologies.
The plant will be one of the world’s largest facilities of its kind and is designed to have a storage capacity of 300 MWh – enough to serve the needs of 480,000 homes.
Highview Power aims to solve the question of “what do you do when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine?”
It solution is to convert excess energy into liquid air, which can be stored through a process of cooling, compression and expansion. When power is required, the liquid air is drawn from storage tanks, pumped to high pressure and reheated, with the resulting high-pressure gas used to power a turbine and generate clean electricity on demand.
Highview Power recently secured backing from the UK Infrastructure Bank and British Gas parent company Centrica, alongside a syndicate of investors including Rio Tinto and Goldman Sachs.
Spencer Group’s civils division will begin work on site in late 2024, with the plant expected to be operational in 2026.
Spencer Group executive chairman Charlie Spencer said: “We have a strong track record of delivering large-scale energy projects and we’re excited to expand our portfolio of works within this field with a project that will play a key role in the UK’s energy transition.”
Highview Power programme director John Goldie, added: "We are looking forward to continuing to build and further our relationship with Spencer Group, which we have developed over the past 24 months during the pre-execute phase of the Carrington project. We selected Spencer Group based on their expertise and experience in delivering similar type projects and providing innovative and value-added solutions in engineering and construction.”
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
