POWER August 2016 - 33

SMART GRID AWARD
1. Snug fit. The 10-MW Kilroot Array was installed inside an unused turbine hall in the
Kilroot Power Station and is integrated into the station's electrical infrastructure. Courtesy:
AES UK & Ireland
POWER POINTS
Winning Attributes
Largest battery storage system
in the UK and Ireland and first
system operating at grid scale
Serving as key test bed for
studying effects and benefits of
battery storage for the islandwide
Single Electricity Market
First phase in planned 100MW
battery array that will help
Northern Ireland and the Republic
of Ireland meet their 40%-by2020
renewable energy target
Over its 35-year history, Kilroot has supported
its responsibility as a critical leg of
the region's generation through repeated upgrades
in its technology and environmental
controls. A flue gas desulfurization system
and selective non-catalytic reduction technology
were added in the 2000s. A variety
of other improvements have helped boost the
plant's heat rate and efficiency. And while
the installation of two 42-MW gas turbines
in 2009 gave Kilroot additional peaking capacity,
the island's ever-increasing renewable
generation meant more than that was needed.
Secure, Sustainable Power
To maintain grid stability, SONI has currently
set a 50% cap on real-time penetration of
non-synchronous generation (which is typically
wind and solar). However, SONI also
estimates that to reach 40% renewable generation,
the grid will need to be able to operate
at levels of non-synchronous penetration
up to 75%, something it cannot currently do.
In 2011, EirGrid, SONI, and other stakeholders
on the island launched the DS3
initiative: Delivering a Secure, Sustainable
Electricity System for Northern Ireland and
the Republic. According to EirGrid, " The
aim of the DS3 Programme is to meet the
challenges of operating the electricity system
in a secure manner while achieving
the 2020 renewable electricity targets. The
DS3 Programme is designed to ensure that
we can securely operate the power system
with increasing amounts of variable nonsynchronous
renewable generation over the
coming years. "
DS3 has three pillars: Performance, polAugust
2016 | POWER
icies, and tools. Energy storage was identified
early on as a critical element of system
performance.
AES is one of the world leaders in large
battery integration, and AES Energy Storage
has deployed and operates the world's
largest fleet of grid-connected batteries,
with 136 MW in operation and another 258
MW under construction or in late-stage development
around the world. AES began
exploring possibilities for energy storage in
Northern Ireland even before DS3 was formally
launched, as the market signals-in
particular, growing curtailment payments
to the island's wind farms as a result of the
grid's inability to accept all the electricity
they were generating-made storage economically
promising.
John Zahurancik, president of AES Energy
Storage, explained to POWER, " Northern
Ireland is installing a significant amount of
renewable energy and is a leader in creating a
market-based mechanism that pays resources
for their performance and the value they deliver. "
That meant a market opportunity for
first movers.
In November 2014, AES co-hosted an energy
storage seminar in the Northern Ireland Assembly
with the All-Party Group on Science
and Technology to boost understanding of the
different types of energy storage, their applications,
and capabilities. Among the speakers
was Mike Kormos, executive vice president
of operations at PJM, which oversees more
grid-connected storage than any other system
operator in the U.S. Kormos stressed that electricity
storage was becoming an increasingly
important tool in grid management.
www.powermag.com
Kilroot already had a Harmonised Ancillary
Services (HAS) contract in place with
SONI. AES in late 2014 proposed to install a
10-MW battery storage system at Kilroot using
its Advancion 4 technology (which won
the Edison Electric Institute's International
Edison Award in June-see " 2016 Edison
Award Winners Announced " at powermag.
com). The proposed Kilroot Array would
provide up to 9.9 MW of Primary Operating
Reserve, Secondary Operating Reserve and
Tertiary Operating Reserve 1 system services
at the existing regulated tariff rates under a
modified HAS contract.
Aggressive Start
Because of the impending changes under DS3,
AES set ambitious deadlines for installation of
the array to ensure that key stakeholders had
sufficient time to become familiar with the
technology. With DS3 releasing interim tariffs
in Q4 2016, AES set a January 1, 2016, target
for completion to ensure its partners could gain
experience with an operating system as the new
market structures were being developed. This
meant a mere six months from project kick-off
to commercial operation.
The battery array was not simply installed
next to the existing plant. Rather, it
was built inside it and integrated into the
existing infrastructure. The vacant hall built
for the never-installed turbine 4 was chosen
for the site of the array to allow it to interconnect
through the existing distribution
boards and transformers of the operational
Unit 2 (Figure 1). The presence of asbestos
in the area meant that some remediation efforts
were necessary.
AES supplied the fourth generation of its
Advancion energy storage technology. Batteries
were supplied by LG Chem and the inverters
by Parker-Hannifin, with construction
and balance of plant components by Scotts
33

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POWER August 2016

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