The UK Government has identified the development of current and future generations of battery technology of strategic importance to the country's manufacturing sector and key to sustaining its valuable domestic automotive industry. In response to this, Britishvolt were established in 2019 with the objective of accelerating the electrification of the automotive industry by constructing large scale lithium-ion battery manufacturing facilities in the UK. The first site, known as the Gigaplant, will be built in Cambois in Northumberland and will have a production capacity for around 300,000 electric vehicle batteries per year.
To service the Gigaplant, a 100MV demand connection application has been submitted to the Northern Powergrid (NPg) network. The connection, at Blyth 66kV Grid Supply Point (GSP) would consist of 2 x 66kV feeder circuit bays, initially providing 34MVA until an additional SGT connection is installed to provide the full capacity. Blyth 66kV is owned and operated by National Grid with the spare bays (ex-generator bays) owned by NPg.
Omnia Projects were commissioned by National Grid to review the NPg scope of work and consider any interface points with National Grid systems within Blyth 66kV substation and its connection with Blyth 275KV substation. The objective was to clearly document the modifications required to National Grid's systems as a result of NPG's work.
The layout and age of Blyth 66kV presented a number of challenges in design, particularly when modifying circuits in accordance with the latest Technical Specifications. As a result, some of the considerations to be reviewed required closer scrutiny and physical investigation of connections rather than dependency on records and drawings, that may not be fully updated or readily available either electronically or as physical copies on site.
We delivered our scope of work in early January 2023.
On the 17th January 2023 Britishvolt entered administration therefore the Gigaplant project is currently on hold.