Scottish Water’s commercial subsidiary Scottish Water Horizons has completed work on a 800kWh battery to store energy generated from 1MW of solar panels, which have recently been installed at the waste water treatment works that serves the city of Perth.

The scheme was delivered by framework contractor Absolute Solar & Wind Ltd, and comprises four vanadium flow batteries, manufactured by Invinity Energy Systems.

The battery will allow around 94% of the renewable power generated to be used on site.

The £2 million battery storage and solar power installation will cut the carbon footprint of the treatment works by around 160 tonnes of CO2 per annum and will reduce energy costs of the treatment works by approximately 40%. It will also help to power the utility’s first rapid electric vehicle charging points which have been installed at the site.

Scottish Water Horizons is developing a programme of opportunities for battery storage across Scottish Water’s asset portfolio. The company’s business development manager, Donald MacBrayne, said: “By harnessing this technology, we now have a much wider opportunity to install renewables schemes that were previously unviable due to grid constraints. It’s a massive step forward for us and will form an integral part of how we cut our emissions in the coming years.

The vanadium flow batteries were assembled by Invinity Energy Systems at its manufacturing and assembly facility in West Lothian. They use an intelligent battery software and control system that coordinates the production, storage and release of the energy generated. The digital optimisation platform, Dynamic Demand 2.0, was supplied and installed by Open Energi.
Scottish Water has committed to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040 with an interim target to host or self-generate three times its annual electricity consumption by 2030. Almost 80 of the company’s water and waste water treatment works are now either self-sufficient or partly sufficient in their power requirements.