£300mln invested in long duration energy storage facility

£300mln invested into Highview Power’s liquid air energy storage (LAES) technology by UK Infrastructure Bank and Centrica.

The LAES technology will be used at a facility in Carrington, Manchester, with the hope of a 300MWh storage capacity and an output power of 50MWs per hour for six hours.

Construction will begin immediately and the company aims for operation in early 2026, supporting over 700 jobs.

Highview Power have plans to create larger facilities by 2035, in line with one of National Grid’s target scenario forecasts of a 2GW requirement from LAES. The company claim this would represent nearly 20% of the UK’s long duration energy storage needs.

Rio Tinto, Goldman Sachs, KIRKBI and Mosaic Capital were also involved in the investment.