Kilroot’s super battery points the way for USA

New York Assembly member Amy Paulin was joined this week by colleague Brian Kavanagh for a tour of the construction site of the AES Kilroot AdvancionTM Energy Storage Array.

This is the corporation’s first advanced, battery-based energy storage facility in the United Kingdom and will provide 10 MW of interconnected energy storage, equivalent to 20 MW of flexible resource.

It will, as the Carrick Times reported previously, be the largest battery in the UK when it begins operations at the end of this year.

The politicians came to Carrickfergus to meet with Carla Tully, AES UK & Ireland president and learn more about how battery energy storage can support security of supply, renewables integration and affordability for consumers – all challenges shared by Northern Ireland and New York.

The US politicians were in Northern Ireland for Belfast Homecoming 2015, a three-day event for 150 leaders of the global Irish and Ulster-Scots diaspora.

As part of the programme, Assembly member Paulin presented Ms Tully with the Belfast Business Ambassador Award.

The honour was in recognition of Ms Tully’s leadership of an American company with strong ties to and investment in Northern Ireland – a connection which Homecoming is designed to promote – and the globally important work around energy storage AES is undertaking at it Kilroot plant.