The Anonymous Widower

Albannach Island: Multi-Million Pound Green Energy Plans Would Create 300 Construction Jobs

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

This is the introductory paragraphs.

A multi-million pound green energy power venture – called Albannach Island – would give a much-needed jobs boost to Caithness.

Highview Power is behind the plans to build a liquid air energy storage plant in a disused part of a quarry in Spittal, adjoining the most northerly stretch of the A9.

The plant appears to be a 50MW/250 MWh CRYOBattery, that is probably similar in size to the one currently being built by Highview Power at Carrington, near Manchester.

This Google map of the North-East corner of Scotland, shows the location.

Note.

  1. John O’Groats is in the North-East corner of the map.
  2. The red arrow shows the location of the A & D Sutherland quarry, where the Highview Power’s CRYOBattery will be located.

This second Google map shows the location in more detail.

Note.

  • The A & D Sutherland quarry is in the South-East corner of the map.
  • The CRYOBattery will use five acres at the North of the quarry site.
  • In the North-West corner of the map is the Spittal sub-station.

The Spital sub-station is described like this on the Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks web site.

Spittal is a new electricity convertor station and is part of the £1.1bn Caithness-Moray project which represents the largest investment in the north of Scotland’s electricity network since the hydro development era of the 1950s and is the largest capital investment project undertaken by the SSE Group to date. It is also the largest Living Wage contract ever awarded in the UK, demonstrating SSEN’s strong commitment to ensure all employees working on its sites get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

It looks like the CRYOBattery will be the cherry on top of the very billion pound cake of the Caithness-Moray Link.

Conclusion

We’ll be seeing more battery installations like this to stabilise power.

Nothing is said in the article, about who is paying for the battery. The only clue is it talks about Highview as a London-based conglomerate.

I wonder, if the company has formed a partnership with one of the energy trusts or a battery site developer.

May 6, 2021 Posted by | Energy, Energy Storage | , , , | 3 Comments