IN Brief:
- Ferrybridge enters operation at 150MW/300MWh, making it one of the larger grid-scale battery projects now running in Britain.
- The system combines 136 liquid-cooled battery units with associated high-voltage infrastructure on the site of the former 2GW Ferrybridge power station.
- The project lifts SSE’s operational battery portfolio to 200MW/400MWh, with further utility-scale storage still under construction.
SSE Renewables has commissioned its 150MW/300MWh Ferrybridge battery energy storage system in West Yorkshire, bringing a large grid-support asset into operation at the site of the former 2GW Ferrybridge coal-fired power station. The project gives the company a second operational battery site and adds another two-hour duration system to the UK’s fast-expanding storage fleet.
Ferrybridge is designed to store electricity when supply is high and return it to the network when demand rises, providing the rapid response increasingly needed as renewable generation takes a larger share of the power mix. At full output the plant can operate for up to two hours, and SSE puts its peak-demand equivalent at almost 250,000 homes.
Construction began in August 2023 and included the installation of 136 liquid-cooled battery units supplied by Sungrow, together with an associated 132kV transformer and grid connection infrastructure. OCU Energy led the construction works, with the project using the former power station site’s existing energy pedigree and grid location to bring new storage capacity onto the system without a greenfield generation build.
The conversion of Ferrybridge from a coal generation site into a storage asset is part of a broader shift in how legacy power locations are being reused. Where the original plant was built around large thermal output, the replacement system is built around flexibility, short-duration balancing, and the ability to respond quickly to changing conditions on the network. That makes the site relevant to a different kind of power system, one in which storage is increasingly used to smooth intermittency, manage congestion, and support frequency and balancing services.
For SSE, the project also expands a battery portfolio that is moving beyond pilot scale. Ferrybridge follows the 50MW/100MWh Salisbury battery project, commissioned in April 2024, and takes the company’s operational battery fleet to 200MW/400MWh. A further 470MW/940MWh remains under construction, including the 320MW/640MWh Monk Fryston scheme in North Yorkshire and the 150MW/300MWh Fiddler’s Ferry project in Cheshire.
That pipeline matters because storage is no longer being treated as an adjunct to renewables. At this scale it is core grid infrastructure, and Ferrybridge adds another operating asset in a part of the country where network flexibility is becoming increasingly valuable as generation, demand, and electrification loads continue to shift.
