Taking place at Highview’s London offices, the signing follows on from an agreement reached by the two companies in April of this year.
Commenting on the agreement, Wayne Jones, Chief Sales Office and Member of the Executive Board, MAN Energy Solutions, said, “It has been pending for some times and it is very pleasing to take care of the formalities.”
“We have worked hard to get to this point and cementing this exciting partnership with such a high-calibre company as Highview Power, a world-leading expert in the storage industry is very satisfying.”
Highview is currently constructing a 50-megawatt LAES facility, capable of a minimum of 250-megawatts per hour (MWh), at Carrington Village, Greater Manchester.
Designating it a litmus test for the future of zero-carbon storage technology, Jones said, “Simply put, the technology’s potential is limitless – we already see multiple opportunities for its further application beyond this project’s successful conclusion.”
“For the first project to happen in my hometown is even better!”
The LAES plant itself makes use of cryogenically liquefied air as a medium for storing energy. Off-peak or excess electrical energy is used to compress ambient air before it’s liquefied in the charging cycle. The liquefied air is then stored in insulated tanks at low temperatures, ready to be drawn from the tanks and evaporated again in the discharging cycle to generate electricity.
With the project drawing not only local but global interest, Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, expressed his excitement at the possibilities generated by the project, saying, “This world-first project demonstrates exactly how Greater Manchester is putting itself at the forefront of the next industrial revolution in sustainable low-carbon technologies.”
“We know that there are good green jobs in new industries just waiting to be created right across Greater Manchester and the North West, and we hope that the Carrington storage facility will help us pioneer those skills and give a boost to our ambition of becoming carbon neutral by 2038.”
Upon completion, the joint partnership between MAN and Highview will result in the formation of one of Europe’s largest battery-storage systems.