Invinity and the Hagshaw LDES Cap and Floor Proposal
Invinity and the Hagshaw LDES Cap and Floor Proposal
21 flow battery projects totalling 16.7GWh met the eligibility criteria for the LDES Cap and Floor scheme (C&F).
Undoubtedly for Invinity, the flagship project in the LDES Cap and Floor scheme (C&F) is 3R Energy's Hagshaw LDES proposal with a massive 6GWh renewable energy (REN) storage capacity (500MW at 12 hr duration). Crucially, their proposal is designed around Invinity's, locally manufactured, vanadium flow battery (VFB), Endurium [1].
Drilling into the documents included in 3R Energy's proposal reveals that the 6GWh of Invinity's Endurium VFB have a supply value of £1.25 Billion (see details on Pg. 17 of the "R013 Socio Economic Report" at [2]), or roughly £200 million/GWh (or £200/kWh). This also ties in with the recent Canaccord broker note (5th May'26) highlighting Invinity's ongoing cost reduction programme allowing future profitable delivery of large scale Endurium installations at a very competitive $250/kWh.
Note that full Hagshaw LDES project application documents can be accessed at the Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit website here [3]
Scanning these documents reveals that this LDES development has full support of the local community and council planning, with no outstanding objections from any of the numerous environmental, utility, and transport organisations consulted. There's also a support letter from Invinity.
I believe that this Hagshaw proposal has an excellent chance of getting awarded a C&F, since the site forms part of an existing significant onshore wind cluster already generating over 300MW of power (but with no long duration storage). 3R Energy also have existing plans to expand and at least double the wind generation capacity in the surrounding areas of the cluster. Hence, adding LDES, yields a project which can offer better utilisation of existing low carbon footprint REN assets and reduced wind generation curtailment - a big win for the Government 2030 REN targets.
3R Energy's role is primarily to take projects through the higher risk consent and early-stage design (i.e. site identification, land agreements, planning and consenting (e.g. Section 36 applications), environmental studies and community engagement), with capital funding coming later from utilities, investors, or project companies. There is precedent for this with 3R Energy and Scottish Power Renewables (a subsidiary of Scottish Power Group, which in turn is part of the utility behemoth, Iberdrola), where they set up a special project company for the Hagshaw Hill repowering project [4].
For this, 3R Energy developed and consented the project, with Scottish Power Renewables funding the construction and later taking ownership of the project company. Iberdrola would certainly have the capital to fund the ~£1.5 billion Hagshaw LDES construction, so I could foresee a similar scenario here, with the significant added incentive of a guaranteed return under C&F.
Following an anticipated award of a C&F for Hagshaw LDES, Invinity is then well positioned to secure the Hagshaw contract because it combines:
Technology Fit (12-hour, grid scale, vanadium flow battery design already specified, Endurium integral to the Hagshaw proposal)
Market Validation (multiple, existing, global deployments of Invinity VFBs)
Regulatory Alignment (meets UK LDES criteria cleanly, and aligns perfectly with the Government 2030 REN strategy)
Economic Advantage (VFBs are long life, low degradation, fully recyclable - all strongly favoured in cap-and-floor modelling)
UK Manufacturing and Employment Benefits (supporting significant local employment growth and manufacturing expansion; Hagshaw is ~20 miles from Invinity's Motherwell factory)
Offers Sovereign Energy Security (provides UK VFB supply, energy security, and local control of supply chain)
Lower Risk Profile (VFB safety, technology maturity, track record of manufacture and delivery of large scale VFB installations in theUK, i.e. Copwood,Oxford)
Naturally, securing an order of this magnitude (£1.25 Billion for 6GWh LDES) would be truly transformational for ~£125m market cap Invinity, and that's only roughly a third of the 16.7GWh eligible flow battery projects that IES could potentially supply under C&F. A truly multi-billion pound commercial opportunity for Invinity!
Furthermore, this is before even considering the massive potential for >500MW LDES for the plethora of Hyperscale AI Data Centres that have already been given planning approval across the central belt of Scotland (where of course Invinity also have two manufacturing bases), including within Lanarkshire (Motherwell site), the, as yet, only currently designated Scottish AI Growth Zone [5]. An immense additionalUKcommercial opportunity for LDES, again, right on Invinity's doorstep, to complement and expand upon the (I believe) inevitable award of substantial C&F LDES supply contracts to Invinity.
Combining Scotland's low carbon footprint, renewable energy, with long life, low degradation, fire safe, high cycling capability LDES (i.e. Invinity VFBs), will, I feel, play a significant future role in powering these AI Data Centres, whilst fully supporting the UK net zero and sovereign energy security objectives.
More on the AI Data Centre angle in due course, but lets wait first for the imminent Ofgem release of the list of successful projects provisionally awarded a C&F.
DJW
References:
[1] https://tinyurl.com/muv7yxh6
[2] https://tinyurl.com/5n8scx3j
[3] https://tinyurl.com/4cpa24rd