World's largest lithium-vanadium hybrid energy storage system starts up at Oxford Energy Centre

The world's largest lithium-vanadium battery hybrid energy storage system (BESS), the Oxford Super Energy Centre (ESO), will soon begin full trading on the UK electricity market, demonstrating the potential of hybrid energy storage assets.

ESO has the world's largest lithium-vanadium hybrid power generation system (BESS) at 55MWh and has the largest tertiary connection to the UK grid.

Wartsila's 50MW/50MWh lithium-ion system has been trading in the UK electricity market since mid-2021, and Invinity Energy Systems' 2MW/5MWh vanadium redox flow battery will soon be added, possibly in this During the quarter, the battery system was electrified last December.

After an introduction period of 3-6 months, the two companies will operate as a hybrid asset, before which they will operate separately. Invinity executives, trader and optimizer Habitat Energy and project developer Pivot Power told us that the hybrid system will be uniquely positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the merchant and ancillary services markets.

In the commercial world, vanadium can gain a smaller profit margin over a longer period of time, while lithium can gain value over a more volatile but shorter period of time.

The head of Habitat Energy's UK operations said: "Being able to realise two values from the same asset is very positive for this project and something we really want to investigate and explore."

Respondents said vanadium flow batteries could provide higher output ancillary services such as DR and DM due to their longer battery life.

ESO has received £11.3 million ($15 million) in funding from Innovate UK, which also includes an electric vehicle charging station and 60 ground source heat pumps, although they are all connected directly to the grid substation, not the BESS itself.