SSE says it is looking at 500MW of battery opportunities and its distributed energy division has acquired the project development rights for its first 50MW battery storage asset. It plans to bring the project, on a consented site in Wiltshire, to financial close and construct the battery storage facility at Salisbury over the next 18 months.

The project was acquired from Harmony Energy, a developer of utility-scale battery energy storage projects, which has developed two projects in the UK and has with a pipeline of over 600MW of project rights.

Richard Cave-Bigley, SSE’s sector director for distributed generation & storage, said: “Our distributed energy division has ambitions to build a significant portfolio of batteries – we’re looking at around 500MW of early stage opportunities – and we hope today’s announcement signals the seriousness of our intent in this market.”

Peter Kavanagh, chief executive of Harmony Energy, said: “The site has been four years development work in the making, demonstrating our expertise in bringing forward complex battery storage developments to construction-ready stage.”