Ørsted to Buy Tesla Battery Energy Storage for Giant UK Offshore Wind Farm

June 12, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

Ørsted has taken a final investment decision (FID) on battery energy storage for its 2.9 GW Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm in the UK, where the developer will use a Tesla system with a capacity of 600 MWh and a power rating of 300 MW.

The battery energy storage system (BESS) will be installed in Swardeston, near Norwich, on the same site as the onshore substation for Hornsea 3. Co-locating the battery with the onshore converter station minimises disruption to those living and working nearby, Ørsted said in a press release on 12 June.

The battery will store the excess electricity generated during periods when the production exceeds demand so it can be discharged later to help balance the grid.

“This will reduce price volatility for consumers as it will make more power available, including during peak periods, when energy is traditionally more expensive. It will also result in UK energy systems being easier to manage by helping smooth out the variations between supply and demand,” Ørsted said.

The 600 MWh capacity of Tesla’s storage system for Hornsea 3 is equivalent to the daily energy use of 80,000 UK homes, the developer noted.

The Hornsea 3 BESS is expected to be operational by the end of 2026 and, once complete, will be one of the largest battery energy storage systems in Europe.

“With this investment, we’re adding significantly to Ørsted’s growing portfolio of storage solutions co-located with onshore and offshore renewable assets,” said Duncan Clark, Head of UK & Ireland at Ørsted.

The developer, which has twelve offshore wind farms in operation in the UK, also has 660 MW (1,850 MWh) of storage projects in operation or under construction in the UK and the US, including the new project at Hornsea 3. The company says it is also developing a storage opportunity pipeline of +2 GW across the UK, Ireland, and the US.

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Business development

Ørsted was awarded a Contract for Difference (CfD) for Hornsea 3 in July 2022 at an inflation-indexed strike price of GBP 37.35 per MWh in 2012 prices. After securing a CfD in 2022, the developer said that with 2.9 GW, Hornsea 3 was the largest single offshore wind farm in the world.

When Ørsted took the FID on the offshore wind farm in 2023, the company noted that the CfD framework permitted a reduction of the awarded capacity and that it would use this flexibility to submit a share of Hornsea 3’s capacity into the UK’s CfD allocation round 6 (AR6).

The 2.9 GW offshore wind farm, located approximately 160 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast, will feature 200 Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW wind turbines and is expected to be operational in 2027.

Once Hornsea 3 is completed, the combined capacity of Ørsted’s Hornsea offshore wind farms (Hornsea 1, 2, and 3) will be more than 5 GW, making this one of the world’s largest offshore wind zones.