Experience of availability of sodium-nickel based energy storage

This paper describes the operational experience gained from running example Sodium Nickel based batteries on the 11kV UK Distribution Network over the period of a year. The experience gained informs Network Operators on how the batteries behave under different operating conditions including frequency response, voltage control and peak load lopping and discusses availability issues through the presentation of collected data which arises under these methods of operation. The paper illustrates that energy storage has some value within Distribution Networks. However, availability for these example batteries would need to be improved before further Grid deployment is an attractive option.