Statkraft has secured planning consent for a second phase of its Coylton Greener Grid Park in East Ayrshire, adding 100 megawatts of battery energy storage capacity to a site where the first phase is still completing commissioning.

What Has Been Approved

The consent, announced on 12 August 2026, covers an additional 100MW Battery Energy Storage System at the Coylton Greener Grid Park. The second phase will be located entirely within the current site footprint, meaning no expansion beyond the existing land boundary is required to accommodate the new infrastructure.

The approval builds on the 50 MW first phase of the project, which Statkraft says is in its final stages of commissioning. Together, the two phases will bring the total capacity of the Coylton site to 150 MW once the second phase is also delivered.

How the Technology Works

The battery storage systems at Coylton are designed to address stability challenges on Great Britain's electricity grid rather than simply storing energy for later dispatch.

The technology deployed uses grid-forming converters attached to the battery units, which Statkraft says always remain in grid-forming mode. This means they inherently resist changes in voltage and frequency on the electricity network, providing a stabilising function that has traditionally been performed by large rotating machinery in conventional fossil fuel power stations.

Beyond grid stability, the batteries are designed to charge during periods when there is a surplus of renewable energy generation across Great Britain. This surplus-capture function allows more renewable power to be transmitted through the network by absorbing generation that might otherwise be curtailed, and releasing it at times of higher demand or lower supply.

The Case for Expansion

Statkraft's project manager for its Greener Grid Parks programme, Sarah Tullie, said securing consent for the expanded scheme would bring significant benefits by supporting a more flexible electricity network and allowing the further expansion of renewable energy sources including wind and solar.

Tullie linked the project explicitly to energy security, stating that more home-grown power on Great Britain's grid network would help achieve greater energy security, keep bills stable for consumers and businesses, and reduce reliance on what she described as expensive and volatile overseas gas supplies.

The design of the scheme is intended to eliminate the need to run fossil fuel power plants during periods when renewable output is high, by providing the balancing and stability services that such plants have historically supplied to grid operators.

Coylton in Context

The Coylton consent is the latest milestone in Statkraft's broader Greener Grid Parks programme across Great Britain. The Norwegian state-owned company, which describes itself as Europe's largest generator of renewable energy, already operates two fully commissioned Greener Grid Parks. One is located at Keith in north-east Scotland, and the other is at Lister Drive in Liverpool.

Beyond those operational sites, Statkraft says commissioning is in its final stages at further sites in Scotland and northern England, while construction is underway on additional projects in Norfolk and Wales. The Coylton first phase falls into the category of sites where commissioning is approaching completion.

The programme represents a significant deployment of grid-scale battery infrastructure across multiple regions of Great Britain, with each site designed around the same grid-forming converter technology being used at Coylton.

Grid Flexibility and Renewable Integration

The broader context for projects of this type is the ongoing challenge facing Great Britain's electricity system as the share of variable renewable generation from wind and solar continues to grow.

Conventional power stations running on gas or coal provide inertia and frequency response services as a byproduct of their operation. As those plants are retired or run less frequently, grid operators must source equivalent services from alternative technologies.

Battery storage systems equipped with grid-forming converters are one of the primary technologies being deployed to fill that gap. By remaining in grid-forming mode continuously, the systems at Coylton and Statkraft's other Greener Grid Parks are positioned to provide these stability services on a standing basis rather than only when actively dispatching or absorbing energy.

The additional 100 MW consented at Coylton will double the grid-forming battery capacity on that site once constructed, expanding the volume of stabilisation and flexibility services available to the network from that location.

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