£300 Million Down The Drain For Trafford Storage–And Guess Who Pays?
By Paul Homewood
More money down the drain!
.
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UK Infrastructure Bank and British Gas-owner Centrica are the primary funders for Highview Power’s proposed liquid air energy storage plant next to the former Carrington Power Station off Manchester Road.
This would be the first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage plant in the UK, according to Highview. Constructing the facility will support more than 700 jobs both directly and in the supply chain, the company added.
The cryogenic energy storage plans have already received approval from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
“My vision is for Greater Manchester to be a leader in the green transition – and Highview Power’s decision to build one of the world’s largest long-duration energy storage facilities at Carrington is a huge boost for the region,” Burnham said.
“This new plant will deliver renewable energy to homes and businesses across our region and bring world-leading technology, jobs, skills, and investment to Greater Manchester.”
With the £300m secured, work is set to start “imminently” on the plant, according to a press release. When operational in early 2026, the facility should be able to store 300MWh of energy and distribute 50MWs per hour every for six hours.
Highview’s cryogenic energy storage facility would compress excess energy from solar and wind farms into air. This would then be liquified and frozen so that it can be stored for several weeks. When the energy is needed again, the liquid air is warmed up so it becomes a gas once more and, in the process, drives a generator-connected turbine – thus making the energy usable by the grid.
The plant would have an operational lifespan of at least 30 years, according to a planning statement from RSK in 2022 – which is when Trafford Council gave the project the go-ahead. You can view that planning application by searching reference number 108006/FUL/22 on the local authority’s planning portal.
Highview has spent the past 17 years creating the technology that makes the cryogenic energy storage plant possible. The company said that its energy storage programme is now capable of being deployed across the country at scale.
It is already planning four facilities that will be even larger than the one at Carrington. These would be capable of storing 2.5Gwh of energy. Building them would require an investment of £3bn.
https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/300m-secured-for-trafford-cryogenic-energy-storage/
If it was not for intermittent wind and solar power, we would not need to be wasting all of this money.
And for what? Six hours worth of power. That is hardly likely to keep the grid going for days on end when the wind stops blowing.
And it will, of course, be funded via our energy bills, one way or another. Why else would Centrica want to splash out hundreds of millions?
Even the 2.5 GWh mooted at a cost of £3bn would only keep the grid going for a couple of minutes. £3 billion pounds just for that?
And remember that storage creates no energy. You have to generate electricity for it to store in the first place, then spend a lot of money to store it, and worst of all you don’t even get all of your energy back out of it.
If someone could tell me of a more illogical proposition, I’d like to know!
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The madness gets worse (I didn’t think it was possible). Long duration – who are they kidding? And 300MWh is pathetically small. There are many BESS which can store more energy, and I don’t think they cost £300m.
Has anybody looked into the safety of such a facility?
Has anybody looked into the feasibility?
There’s a comprehensive demolition of this nonsense over at https://cliscep.com/2024/06/13/storing-up-problems/
Nobody seems to care about thermodynamic efficiency of these processes. I guess (did not really bother to estimate) 20% tops. The project will be known as Carrington Event.
Anything to be a ‘leader.’
It will deliver whatever energy it has . . . it can’t make any energy renewable just by handling it.
OMFG! Can we get an editor? Compressing energy into air. Well, they did say it took them 17 years to develop the technology.
No such business model. “When Highview can make money on the stored energy” is when it will happen. All the powers that be are still deluded in believing storage is backup. It’s for arbitrage, not backup. Dumbasses.
This is just stupid beyond comprehension. Wasting vast sums on useless equipment and jobs doing the unneeded . . . they may as well be breaking windows. And the ‘reducing energy bills for consumers’ is FRAUD in the first degree: consumers are going to have to pay for all this happy horseshit.
Energy stability: you have it or you don’t. There is no damn such thing as ‘significantly improved.’
There is no lie which these trougher companies are not prepared to spout.
https://www.online-literature.com/swift/gulliver/21/
“He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers.” I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them.”
Jobs are a cost and make us poorer.
Productivity is the elimination of jobs. New technology increases productivity and eliminates jobs, makes us richer and releases labour to be reallocated in new wealth creating activity.
Fossil fuel use eliminated a huge number of jobs and made us wealthier. Green Grift will reverse the process, require more jobs, make us poorer.
Even batteries are cheaper per MWh. Ridiculous.
Come on, it’s only £500Mn spaffed, it’s a drop in ocean in the whole net zero by 2050 scam, which is estimated to cost £3Tn and rising! Joking aside, the developers should have to pay that money, not taxpayers
If it’s such a good idea why aren’t investors flocking to get a piece of the action?
“why aren’t investors flocking to get a piece of the action?“
Not enough subsidies ??
Betcha big boss at Highview is Friend of Labour.
White elephant stampede!
Paul,
If my analysis is correct, the claims made for this are overstated by a factor of close to four:
iirc there’s a liquid air pilot plant that’s failed already?
Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg would love this project.
THe biggest hazard for this project is the low round trip efficiency. It’s not clear to me where they will get free coolth to help cool the air, or free heat to help regasify it. Both are critical to improving the deemed efficiency: the best site would probably be in Milford Haven, where an LNG terminal can provide coolth for regasifying LNG and the refinery or power station could provide the heat. In reality, with out these free inputs the round trip is probably only around 40% efficient. That makes it hard to earn a margin.
So… one bunch in Milford Haven have some ‘coolth’ and need warmth, and another bunch need some cooling, having heat to get rid of. I think I can see a plan that doesn’t require a middle man!
https://uk.rwe.com/press-and-news/2023-11-30-rwe-and-dragon-lngs-innovative-project-receives-support-from-uk-research-and-innovation/
But then they spoil it by whittling on about green H2 and carbon capture.
“I think I can see a plan that doesn’t require a middle man!”
That plan already happens in Kent!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_Power_Station#Combined_heat_and_power
Highview claim wthey will use excess energy from wind and solar.
That sounds most unlikely as it is so rare.
That sort of makes sense, as they will charge it when electricity prices are low, which comes when there are gales (maybe of laughter).
And they will sell it when it’s high. That’s the business model. The notion of Highview holding it back til the end to save the grid is just ignorant. They plan to make money with arbitraging price differences.
Hooray ! It’s another use for all that surplus wind and solar generated electricity .
Slightly off – topic , but related , the June 7th posting from the Australian magazine / blog Quadrant carries an interesting article by John Mikkelsen about the terrifyingly gargantuan energy demands of AI .
As a Trafford resident I am concerned about this project , having read here in the past about local councils awarding vast sums to failed “green” projects , leavng residents to pay for the failure.
So I started to look at the finances of the company involved Highview Power, using the public information from Govt House. Now I am not an accountant so what i found may be perfectly OK and normal accountancy and financial business procedure but I have to say it disturbed me a bit.
HighView Power is a dormant company witb £1 share capital. The entity with significant control is Highview Enterprises Ltd . According to the last financial statement(31st Dec 2022) it had a profit and loss account of negative £74million.. But it has called up share capital of £133K , and a share premium (what people are actually paying) of £88million. £88million for a company with operating loss of £74 million . Is that normal? OK so I am totally uneducated in financial matters but again as a Trafford resident who will eventually have to fork up for any subsequent failure of this project it leaves me a bit worried .
Perhaps I should emigrate to some part of the country that does not have such pretensions about being a “world leader”.
A familiar pattern…
UK aims to lead the global wave and tidal energy sector – 25th Mar 2020
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/uk-wave-and-tidal-energy-sector/
I read these sorts of developments and despair for the future. Does nobody apply basic knowledge anymore or is subsidy milking the over riding essential?
Just look at a typical UK domestic energy bill – the vast majority of energy (not cost) is used in space and water heating. Sole electricity use (excluding space/water heating and cooking applications) is actually very low. Modern lighting, communications equipment, TV/audio, laundry/dish washing (excluding the water heating elements), refrigeration etc will likely only average around 4 kWh daily per household with seasonal variations putting that in the 3 to 5 kWh range.
Final domestic end use energy consumption in cooler climates is massively dominated by thermal energy i.e. heat for keeping warm, supplying hot water for multiple purposes and cooking. All of these needs (plus refrigeration) can efficiently and very simply be met by combustion of gas that is already supplied to over 80% of UK households at low real cost when extraneous unnecessary taxes and charges are excluded. The system works and works well. If it ain’t broke…..
So what perverse logic comes up with completely dismantling an excellent system to
All this crap to satisfy some perverted imposed religion (there is no science remotely close to being involved) by a few deranged but fabulously wealthy megalomaniacs….oh and Andy Burnham.
Common sense, but facts are the last thing that the eco loons want to acknowledge, we have to worship the climate change act 2008, a legal requirement to waste money on “sunbeams from cucumbers” projects.
Geoff, you will know what the environment of a large electricity sub-station is like – the hum and the waste heat from all those transformers etc.
What better place for the Met Office to relocate a weather station to than say Bradford West sub station and call it Bingley
eh?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/53%C2%B048'41.2%22N+1%C2%B052'00.5%22W/@53.8111438,-1.8672113,160m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d53.8114328!4d-1.8668009?entry=ttu
There is nothing like accurate data and this site will produce nothing like accurate data! And some people wonder why I call it a religion.
Ray Sanders, bravo .
Full and depressing summary Ray. Thankyou.
Guess I should added ….VOTE REFORM…..whilst I was at it!
”When the energy is needed again, the liquid air is warmed up so it becomes a gas once more…”
Whence the energy to heat it up again?
It seems to me a great deal of energy is going into this to get considerably less out.
Another interconnector bites the dust:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/swedish-government-says-no-to-new-power-cable-to-germany/ar-BB1oeC46
Just a few miles away is this:
https://stateraenergy.co.uk/projects/west-didsbury-battery-storage
50MW/MWh of battery now getting near to commissioning. Cost likely to be of the order of £0.5m/MWh: the next accounts will give a better clue. Capable of supporting up to 13,000 homes for an hour according to them.
The Carrington site used to be Shell Chemicals, while the neighbouring Partington now houses a paper recycling plant that has its own attached power station which could well deliver low grade heat to help with regasification.
Carrington Power Station – A gas-fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station has now been built, utilising the same site as the original coal-fired
station. Bridestone Developments constructed the £500 million station,
which is capable of generating 884MW of electricity (at approximately
58% efficiency[11]); enough power to supply a million homes.[1] Irish utility company ESB Group purchased an 85% stake in the project from Carlton Power in September 2008. The station is also a combined heat and power plant, capable of providing nearby businesses with steam, if they require a supply.
LAES can make use of low grade heat for regasification. Indicative capacity market credit factors are about 60-64% for 2027 for 6 hour duration. So the battery could expect ~60% of 50MW paying say £70/kW/a or just £2.1m p.a. in Capacity Market payments. Not a lot against a £300m cost: assuming a 30 year life and 6% financing cost the capital charge would be ~£22m p.a.
Assuming they actually get to do 1 round trip per day (365x300MWh=109,500 MWh redelivered p.a.) they would need to earn around £200/MWh on the round trip to cover the financing charge. Current BESS earnings are ~£25,000/MW/a or £1.25m for a 50MW supply. Total income: £3.35m; total expenditure >£22m. Subsidies incoming.
We are not told what is the cycle energy efficiency of this plant.
At best it will be about 70%, and even that figure relies on some “low grade heat” being available.
Looking at the technology page on their website I noticed a little icon off to the side with the label “Decoupled stability island provides system inertia, reactive power and short-circuit services”. Presumably that will help counter the impacts on the grid of so much renewables and provide additional revenue.
A further thought……how will they keep the liquid air well-mixed? Liquid oxygen is markedly heavier than liquid nitrogen so, over time, the tank contents could become stratified which would have serious H&S consequences.
See Apollo 13. Tank agitators.
Probably worth adding that although inertia, reactive power and short circuit strength have value a 50MW generator can’t be expected to earn much with 884MW of CCGT next door providing these, some of which could be run as a synchronous condenser when it’s power input is not needed.
Liquid air does not stratify, any more than whisky stratifies into ethanol and water layers.
What is a bit awkward is the nitrogen tends to boil off first when it is being regassified, leaving an oxygen-rich liquid. As the distillation proceeds the gas becomes ever richer in oxygen, which has its hazards which must be planned for.
Hi Mike, apparently there is a lot of research and concern about stratification.
This research piece specifically mentions Highview.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359431121012655#:~:text=Liquid%20air%20is%20a%20mixture,and%20thus%20causes%20safety%20challenge.
And of course we can all ignore the bot kzbkzb for his daft intrusions.
Hi Ray,
Thanks for that link. Good to read from the synopsis that the subject has received serious attention so any potential issues should be addressed. They will be well aware of the danger of releasing either oxygen- or nitrogen-rich air, especially if it is not fully up to ambient temp and so would blanket the ground.
Years ago I worked for an industrial gas company. These sort of issues were always front-of-mind.
Whatever this stratification is, it is not as envisaged by MikeH. Because it also occurs for pure liquid nitrogen.
Whatever it is, it can’t be heavier molecules sinking to the bottom under gravity.
If that actually happened, the salt would sink to the bottom of the sea, and we would be living (or not) in a layer of argon sunk to the bottom of the atmosphere.
Hi again Mike, perhaps I should have added this link to clarify my last sentence.
https://github.com/kzbkzb
Thanks Ray – duly noted.
Why aren’t these clowns booked into a funny house ?
“Highview’s cryogenic energy storage facility would compress excess energy from solar and wind farms into air.”
Whoever wrote this tosh clearly has no scientific knowledge at all. You can’t “compress energy” and certainly not “compress it into air”!
What this plant does is to use electrical energy to compress air to liquefy it and presumably use more electrical energy to remove heat so that the liquid air solidifies. Then, if you allow this solid air to liquefy or sublime you get an air stream that will spin a turbine to re-generate some of the electricity that you previously used.
I’d like to see a proper analysis of the energy losses intrinsic to this system, which will surely be quite high given that energy losses will occur at all the stages of the process. I would hazard a guess that the system will probably output around 30% of the electricity of the original electrical input. So it’s not a particualry attractive process to store energy, unless you are a green zeolot easily taken in by the snake oil salesmen all looking for govt handouts of public money