Boralex is pleased to announce that its first dedicated Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at Loch Toftingall near Spittal in Caithness, Scotland has been approved by the North Planning Applications Committee of The Highland Council.
Project Director, Richard Frost said: “We are delighted to have been granted permission to build our Toftingall BESS scheme in Caithness. The project is ideally located not only close to renewable generation assets such as the Halsary Wind Farm, but also the Mybster Substation which it will work alongside to help balance the grid.”
Toftingall was initially both a wind turbine and BESS project, however, following consultation events in the local community, Boralex made the decision to remove the two turbines from the scheme and focus solely on maximising the potential of the BESS element.
The Battery Energy Storage System will import and store electricity from the electricity network when there is a surplus of generation, and then export this again when there is a deficit. This balancing function reduces the amount of time that renewable generation needs to be curtailed (switched off) reducing the need to create electricity from fossil fuels. The facility would also help make the electricity network more resilient to outages. The project has a maximum storage output of 49.9 megawatts.
