A grid battery that soaks up spare wind at night and releases it when the region needs it most.
Battery storage
Midlands, England
Online 2025
Storage
200 MWh
Response time
Under 1 second
Homes covered
80,000
The story
How we planned and built it
The challenge
Nearby wind farms were being switched off on windy nights because the grid could not take the extra power.
The quarry floor needed stabilising first, and the battery had to respond faster than any gas plant in the region.
Our approach
We built a 200 MWh battery hub on a former quarry site next to the substation, controlled from our 24 hour control room.
Our control room software trades the battery minute by minute, charging on windy nights and releasing at the peak.
The result
Curtailment at the neighbouring wind farms dropped by two thirds, and the hub helps keep the regional grid stable in under a second.
The hub has already earned back a fifth of its build cost and keeps neighbouring turbines running on gusty nights.
Key facts
200 MWh of lithium iron phosphate storage
Full response in under one second
Built on a restored former quarry
Curtailment at nearby wind farms down by two thirds
Fernhill turned wasted night wind into evening power for the whole region, and it simply works.
PS
Priya Shah
Head of flexibility, Midlands Energy
