First approved by the Scottish Government back in late 2015, Hywind Scotland began generating electricity in October of last year and, in February, Equinor (then known as Statoil) revealed that not only has the project been a success, but that the project is outperforming expectations and generating electricity at levels consistently above that of its seabound offshore cousins, wind turbines that are built into the seafloor.

Even before Hywind was completed and operational, however, the two companies behind the project — Statoil/Equinor and Masdar — conceived of plans to add a battery storage option to the project, which would be the first time a battery storage project has been attached to an offshore wind energy project. The project was given the go-ahead, and earlier this year the two companies announced they would use the project, known as Batwind, to further study the potential of integrating battery systems with wind and solar.

Announced on Wednesday, Equinor revealed that Batwind has been completed and the 1 MW battery provided by Younicos, and located at an onshore substation, will now be able to dynamically balance power from the offshore wind farm.