A GLOBAL renewable energy company headquartered near Romsey has sold its first battery energy storage system (BESS).

French utility company ENGIE acquired the Broxburn BESS, a 50 megawatt (MW) project in Scotland, from East Wellow's Hive Energy and its partners Ethical Ethical Power, EcoDev Group and Sirius Group.

The partnership is developing a further 450MW portfolio of BESS and solar schemes for the next five years. The Broxburn project will provide support for more than 20,000 homes annually.

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Chief commercial officer for Ethical Power Group, Stuart Whiteford, said: “This is a fantastic achievement and marks the first battery site sale for our partnership. We look forward to delivering the full pipeline of projects under development in order to contribute toward substantially increasing the UK’s energy security.”

Head of Battery Storage UK at ENGIE FlexGen, Aidan Connolly, said: “We were pleased to complete this transaction with Hive Energy, Ethical Power, Sirius and EcoDev. The Broxburn acquisition demonstrates our ambition to strengthen ENGIE’s leading position in both power and gas storage in the UK, key activities which are vital to facilitating the energy transition.

"The project will complement ENGIE’s other BESS project in the vicinity, at Cathkin (East Kilbride), with both 50MW sites connecting into the 33kV network at the same time.”

Battery energy storage systems provide grid balancing services while allowing energy from photovoltaics or wind power to be stored for later use, therefore helping to expand renewable energy use.