Coal mining town invests big in green power

Moixa, Northern Powergrid and Energise Barnsley in the UK plan to demonstrate how clusters of home batteries could add capacity on the electricity network and enable more homes to install solar panels.

In a £250,000 trial, Moixa lithium-ion batteries would be installed in 40 homes and linked in a virtual power plant to cut peak solar output onto the electricity networks when the local demand was low.

Of the installed batteries 20 would have a capacity of 2kWh and the other 20 would have a capacity of 3kWh, giving a nominal total capacity of 100kWh.

The first batteries would be installed by end January for which residents would not charged.

The installation of the batteries would be funded by electricity distributor Northern Powergrid in Oxspring, near Barnsley.

Domestic solar panels generate electricity for the home, or export it to the grid when not needed by the household, which could strain existing networks.

Batteries provide an alternative by storing power when solar panels were generating electricity but it was not needed and then supplying it to homes when required for lighting and appliances.

The scheme aimed to allow households to use more locally-produced clean energy and show that clusters of batteries could reduce peak amounts of solar power being supplied to networks when demand was low.