Thames Freeport - Britain's Trading Future

[ 71 ] BESS projects are highly flexible and can provide power almost instantaneously. This means that a range of ancillary and system support services such as frequency response, stability services and constraint management (reducing the requirement for additional transmission investment) can also be delivered, helping National Grid manage the transmission system. The need for such services will grow significantly as renewable capacity increases and older gas plants retire. The Gateway system is set to provide at least 640 MWh (based on 320 MW export capacity and two- hour discharge duration) of capacity with the potential to expand to 1.3 GWh, dwarfing any similar projects currently in operation in the UK, with the largest operational project presently 100 MWh. When fully charged, the battery could power up to 300,000 homes for two hours. No existing project in the UK has the scale of the InterGen Gateway proposal. As such, it represents a significant pillar of the system architecture required to help support the transition to net zero. InterGen was granted planning consent for the Gateway site by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in November 2020. Commenting on the consent award, InterGen’s CEO, Jim Lightfoot said: “We are delighted to have been granted consent for the Gateway storage project. Our mission is to deliver the flexible electricity solutions that everyone relies on in a low-carbon world, and this project is In addition to the benefits provided to National Grid and to the UK’s challenging net zero target, InterGen is examining how the BESS could provide the Freeport Partners with continuous, low carbon energy to support their own sustainability objectives