The energy storage market in Ireland continues to show strong growth potential. While still in the early stages of site construction, new additions are now providing a strong uptick in activity.
Year-on-year additional capacity built this year remains at a steady rate; 720MWh of energy storage was operational at the end of 2023 and cumulative operational capacity is predicted to reach over 1.7GWh by the end of 2025.
All data and analysis in this article refers to the Republic of Ireland, and comes from our in-house market research at Solar Media, specifically our Republic of Ireland Battery Storage Project Database Report.
With at least 720MWh of energy storage deployed – and 1GWh in construction – the growth of the energy storage market in Ireland has been rapid, considering the first project was only energised in 2020.
In particular, the pipeline increased by over 4GWh in 2023, a growth of 75% compared to 2022. The first half of 2024 shows further promise that this strong growth will continue, with 2.5GWh already submitted and over 1.5GWh of additional storage forecast to be connected to the grid by the end of 2025.
Figure 1 above shows the pipeline of energy storage in Ireland, where the total applications submitted between 2015 and H2 2024 has a cumulative capacity of 14.41GWh.
The second quarter of 2024 saw the highest number of applications submitted, at over 2GWh. On an annual basis, 2023 showed a growth of 92% from 2022, compared to a growth of 42% from 2022 to 2021 when comparing capacity in MW.
Seven applications submitted in 2023 (17%) were over 100 MW, compared to only two applications (9%) in 2022. However, due to the small number of applications, these larger projects contributed to more than half of the capacity submitted in both years.
The largest known projects delivered were both 100 MW/100MWh sites, completed in 2020 and 2021. Since then, the number of projects has only marginally grown in size each year and the capacity installed has not shown any significant advancements either.
Figure 2 below shows all energy storage projects in Ireland, in terms of their build status. This includes tracking projects from the initial pre-application stage, through to full build-out (operational).
Despite the relatively low deployment level today, the pipeline remains promising, with 448MWh in pre-application, 3.7GWh having been submitted or at appeals (with decisions in the coming months), 5.3GWh of planned capacity approved, as well as 2.2GWh with grid connection approved awaiting construction. It is safe to say the number of operational sites will be increasing markedly in the next few years.
Statkraft delivered the first energy storage project in Ireland with Fluence in 2020, at its Kilathmoy wind farm and the company has continued to have a strong presence in the Irish energy storage field since then. The company is also lining up another milestone project soon, with the country''s first four-hour duration energy storage system.
Figure 3 shows the co-location status of submitted applications, where the most common co-located energy generator is solar (particularly in 2023). Although the number of standalone projects is slightly larger than co-located solar and storage sites, co-located projects tend to have smaller capacities (an average of 29MWh for solar and 19MWh for wind).
Highfield Energy has been one of the most active in Ireland, when incorporating energy storage alongside solar farms, with at least 15 applications submitted with this pairing. The company also has a few standalone projects with Aura Power; however, these predominantly date back to 2018. In addition, both Lightsource bp and Terra Solar are planning to utilise storage systems in their solar farms in Ireland.
While the energy storage pipeline in Ireland remains strong, it is unlikely to see a similar growth in built capacities until a few years from now. The potential cut-backs in DS3 tariffs may also pose risk in the development of this market. However, until now the market has shown great promise and the increase in co-located projects recently proves energy storage is well on the way to assisting Ireland to meet its net-zero goals by 2050.
Over 2.5GW of grid-scale battery storage is in development in Ireland, with six projects currently operational in the country, four of which were added in 2021.
The operational use of the already-installed capacity of grid-scale battery storage was displayed in May 2021, when the frequency of Ireland''s electricity grid dropped below normal operating range. Two of the country''s six large-scale battery storage projects were called upon to help and had injected power into the network within 180 milliseconds, stabilising the network.
The 11MW system at Kilathmoy, the Republic''s first grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) project, and the 26MW Kelwin-2 system, both built by Norwegian power company Statkraft, responded to the event, which was the longest under-frequency event in recent years. The electricity grid went out of bounds of 49.9Hz – 50.1Hz for more than 14 minutes.
Battery storage can offer a source of support to the electricity grid, enabling the addition of more wind and solar power over time. The Irish energy system today is using gas or coal power plants for energy purposes, rather than as a means of providing support services to the grid. This means that wind power plants are then prevented from providing electricity to the grid to make way for those thermal resources. Enabling emissions-free methods such as battery storage for the provision of these services instead would facilitate the use of renewable energy in several different ways.
Despite the fact that energy storage is regarded as relatively new in Ireland, the 2020 goal of 40 per cent renewable electricity and energy storage project developers have been successful in winning contracts in EirGrid''s DS3 market. The DS3 has procured 14 different network ancillary services under a fixed tariff regime, although it is due to expire in three years. However, demand for grid service assets such as battery storage is likely to multiply, necessitating the provision of a DS3 type scheme from 2024 onwards.
A pipeline of over 2.5GW of grid-scale battery projects has now emerged in Ireland, with capacity projections increasing by 25 per cent in recent years. Over 75 per cent of this pipeline is made up of standalone projects, but increased interest in the possibility of colocation with solar and wind projects has been reported since 2018, although these are smaller in capacity.
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