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NETWORK / 30 / JULY/AUGUST 2018 A corner of Manchester is now home to a 5MW/15MWh Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) plant, which is the • rst operational demonstra- tion of LAES technology at grid-scale. The plant is located at the Pils- worth facility in Bury, owned by recycling and renewable energy company, and project partner, Viridor. The Pilsworth plant has been enabled in part by over £8 million in funding from the UK government. It builds on the success of the pilot plant which operated on the UK grid for four years at an SSE site in Slough, UK. Following the recent connection to the grid, demand response aggregator KiWi Power is now drawing energy from the LAES plant, capable of powering the equivalent of Pulling energy from the air Zero-emission energy production moved a big step closer towards commercialisation recently with the launch of the world's fi rst liquid air energy storage plant. Network reports. about 5,000 average-sized homes for around three hours. Other industries and developers have investigated liquid air as an energy vector, however Highview Power arguably leads the long-duration storage market given the company has built the only two operational LAES plants in the world. This also means the company has accrued over a decade of experience and operational knowledge, together with a solid family of patents and intellectual property. Highview Power CEO, Gareth Brett, is bullish about the global opportunity for LAES technology: "We are in detailed discussions with utilities and renewable operators around the world who see the op- portunity for LAES to support the transition to a low-carbon world." Indeed, more energy industry players are waking up to the fact that lithium ion batteries cannot scale economically to meet the energy demand of larger urban areas i.e. small towns to large cities. At the same time, pressure is mounting to decarbonise global energy systems as countries step up e™ orts to meet their obligations to the Paris Agreement, a legally binding commitment that forces governments to accept and cater for the 2°C limit. Brett comments: "To curb greenhouse gas emissions, we need innova- tive, proven storage technologies, such as LAES technology, that enable the wider deployment of renewable sources of clean energy, such as from the sun and wind." The UK's changing energy landscape is rež ected in the electricity generation • gures for 2017: renewable energy comprising ELECTRICIT Y GENERATION Storage capacity comparison