Monday 25 June 2018

On Friday 22 June 2018, Jean-Bernard Lévy, the EDF Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bruno Bensasson, the Group Executive Vice-President in charge of Renewable Energies and Simone Rossi, EDF Energy Chief Executive Officer officially opened two ground breaking projects in the United Kingdom: the Blyth off-shore wind farm and the West Burton B battery storage facility.

Blyth off-shore wind farm

Located off the Northumberland coast, the Blyth off-shore wind farm is composed of five turbines with total generation capacity of 41.5MW. Several innovations have been built in to contribute to enhanced competitiveness of off-shore wind power.

Blyth is the first off-shore wind farm to use float and submerge technology. The wind turbines are supported with gravity-based foundations transported by floating, which reduces the installation costs. The 8.3MW turbines are amongst the most powerful of their type to be used offshore. A dedicated operations and maintenance team with 9 members has been set up at the Port of Blyth.

The EDF Group, in the form of EDF Renewables in the UK, already operates the 62MW Teesside off-shore wind farm located around 80km to the south of the new Blyth facility. In May, the Group acquired the 450MW Neart Na Gaoithe off-shore wind project off the east coast of Scotland and has been granted all the administrative permits.

West Burton B battery storage facility

The 49MW battery storage facility located at West Burton B power station is the largest project in the new frequency control system which will be deployed across the UK to improve stability of the national grid.

Against the backdrop of extensive development of renewable energy generation and the closure of ageing power plants, battery storage technology supports stability of the grid and can be used for rapid response to fluctuations in grid frequency.