Industry predictors of solar/storage build-out have highlighted a sharp rise in applications for co-located storage with a medium-term market capacity in excess of 20GW. Image: Public Domain Image.

Irish energy trading and services company ElectroRoute, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi, has announced it will add to its London-based team and expand into the UK.

It already manages 1.9GW of assets in Ireland, including over 250MW energy storage, and now plans to substantially expand its UK operations over the coming months. It says it is eyeing the co-location market for solar and storage assets as a key long-term growth opportunity.

Industry predictors of solar/storage build-out have highlighted a sharp rise in applications for co-located storage with a medium-term market capacity in excess of 20GW.

ElectroRoute will provide clients with a range of trading and risk management services, including asset optimisation, route-to-market and balancing services and revenue protection structures. It uses an in-house trading platform, ElectroRoute CORE, which is an AI-powered virtual power plant (VPP).

Commenting on the announcement, Caoimhe Giblin, Co-CEO, said: “ElectroRoute is steadfast in our mission to help solve the commercial mechanics of a decarbonised energy system and we view the UK market as a strategic platform for us as we plan our medium term growth both here and into Europe.

“Our trading activities in the UK are long established via our power, gas and biomethane trading activities and we’re delighted to further develop that through the announcement of our renewable and storage optimisation business.”

Giblin also mentioned “a number of exciting opportunities in late stage negotiations”, though no further information is available on what form these might take.

The UK government’s increased focus on renewable energy growth has been credited with encouraging the expansion. The increased budgets for clean energy projects in the UK have been promised as incentives for private investment, without which even the record-breaking sixth auction round (AR6) of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme would fall short of funding the capacities targeted for 2030.

Modo Energy analysis suggests that 5GW of the 9.6GW of renewable energy capacity awarded contracts in AR6 could be suitable for, or has already revealed plans for, co-located battery storage. As a result, as much as 1.4GW of BESS capacity could be created as part of new renewable energy projects resulting from the AR6.

Further, National Grid ESO’s Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2024 estimated the UK will have an energy storage installed capacity of between 22-34GW by 2030. The benefits of storage could be realised through commercial installations of the technology: a report by energy service provider Joulen suggests 0.1% of UK businesses could provide the equivalent power of both Hinkley Point C and 130 grid-scale battery sites by installing battery energy storage.