Harmony Energy: CEO discusses vital role battery energy storage sites will play in UK's Net Zero ambitions

Current estimates note that the UK will need around ten times its current capacity for energy storage to achieve net zero.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Mr Kavanagh, who is CEO and founder of Harmony Energy and Investment as well as director of Harmony Energy Income Trust PLC, said: “Renewables are great, they’re very low cost, and we need a lot more of them.

“But you also need the ability to store the energy to make the most out of it, and batteries work really well with renewable power.

“What batteries do well is respond to other technology, so if you have a big power plant, and say that goes offline, within a millisecond a battery patch will ramp up and put that power straight back into the grid to avoid blackouts.”

Harmony Energy runs the biggest battery energy storage site in Europe, located in Cottingham, as well as having built and operated 15 wind power sites in the UK.

The firm’s Cottingham site began planning in 2016, and cost a total of £75 million.

Now Harmony Energy’s flagship site, the development uses battery technology from Tesla, who the firm have worked with on multiple projects.

With a total capacity of 98 megawatts, Harmony Energy estimates that the site could power around 300,000 homes - or a city the size of Manchester - for up to two hours.

Discussing the firm’s choice to use battery storage, Mr Kavanagh said: “We looked at a lot of different energy storage technologies, and there's a lot of really interesting ideas people talk about like using sand or gravity.

“It all sounds great, but the reality is it isn't scalable or bankable yet.

“Batteries can’t go absolutely anywhere, but they are a lot easier to develop, and you can develop them out quickly, which is exactly what we need now”

The batteries used by Harmony Energy also contain no cobalt, which has previously come to media attention due to links with modern day slavery in its mining processes.

Harmony Energy has recently been at the centre of controversy due to a planned solar farm in Old Malton, North Yorkshire.

The firm received criticism for its planned use of land currently used as farmland to create a solar farm, as well as Eden Camp museum raising safety concerns about the use of a battery near its site.

Speaking on Harmony Energy’s choice of site in Old Malton, Mr Kavanagh said: “The reality is that solar needs to go somewhere. The reason we’ve chosen that site is because it's next to the Old Malton substation, and next to the A64, and that is the only place in the whole of Rydale where you can connect a solar plant at that scale.

“I think there needs to be debate, but if we want to hit net zero the reality is you are going to end up taking some productive land, and it's about deciding what is more useful.”

Mr Kavanagh also noted that the planning had received no objections from the fire department or English Heritage.

The firm has released correspondence between itself and concerned parties on the planning portal of its website.