Anglian Water is investing in solar PV and storage to reduce its annual £77 million energy bill.

Over the next 18 months, the water company will add over 30MWp of solar PV, under a 25-year PPA contract with HBS New Energies & Macquarie Principal Finance, to its existing fleet of wind turbines and CHP engines powered by biogas. The PV will increase renewables generation by 25%.

The company is also now installing a 60kW/300kWh vanadium redox  flow battery from redT alongside a 450kWp solar PV system at a ‘pathfinder’ water treatment works in Norfolk. It will work with Open Energi, using the aggregator’s Dynamic Demand 2.0 software, to optimise energy consumption and stack demand-side value streams.

The battery can provide at least 5 hours of energy storage and is flexible enough to react to real-time energy trading opportunities. Anglian Water estimates it will enable it to increase onsite solar generation by 80% at the site. In parallel, it will provide real-time balancing services to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage. In total, the project is expected to reduce site electricity costs by 50% by 2040.

The new solar PV programme is expected to deliver annual savings in excess of £1 million. The company said a  second significant solar programme would be out for tender “shortly”.