Hornsea 3 Battery Energy Storage to Start Operations Next Year, Ørsted Selects Arenko’s Platform to Operate BESS

Arenko has been selected by Ørsted to deploy its Nimbus optimisation, asset management and trading platform at the 300 MW/600 MWh Iceni battery energy storage system (BESS) that will be part of the 2.9 GW Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm in the UK. The BESS project is scheduled to enter operations in the first quarter of 2027.

Named Iceni, the battery storage project is being developed as one of the UK’s first large-scale co-location projects under the Offshore Transmission Network Review (OTNR).

Iceni is designed to share transmission infrastructure and an onshore grid connection with Hornsea 3, rather than securing a separate grid connection. According to Arenko, this makes it the world’s first utility-scale battery to be directly integrated into offshore transmission infrastructure.

Under the agreement with Ørsted, Arenko’s Nimbus software will be used to forecast market and asset conditions, determine how battery capacity should be allocated in real time and automate trading across power markets. The platform will also support the technical, data and controls integration required to operate the battery alongside the offshore wind farm through their shared connection.

“What makes Iceni interesting for us isn’t just the scale of the battery, but how it works alongside Hornsea 3. We are aiming to optimise two very different assets, wind and storage, through a shared connection point, while ensuring that both deliver significant value to the grid”, said Katinka Hussman Palbo, Vice President, Global Trading & Revenue, Ørsted.

Ørsted took a final investment decision (FID) on the battery energy storage project in June 2024, when the developer said it would use a Tesla system with a capacity of 600 MWh and a power rating of 300 MW. The company broke ground for the BESS project near Norwich, at the same site where the Hornsea 3 onshore converter station is being built, in March 2025.

“Iceni is a highly sophisticated project, coupling a grid scale battery with one of the UK’s biggest offshore wind farms. This creates significant opportunities, but also operational and trading challenges, from forecasting and deciding how and when to allocate capacity in real time, to the technical, data and controls integrations between the two assets”, said Rupert Newland, CEO, Arenko.

“We’ve worked closely with Ørsted over time as their thinking around flexibility has evolved, and with projects like Iceni they are taking a pioneering role in bringing truly significant generation capacity and utility-scale storage together. Nimbus is built for that kind of environment, providing the automation and optimisation capabilities needed to manage increasingly large and complex assets, across multiple markets.”

Located around 120 kilometres off the coast of Norfolk in the UK North Sea, the 2.9 GW Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm is currently under construction, with the first monopile foundations installed at the beginning of this year.

The offshore wind farm will comprise 197 Siemens Gamesa SG 14-236 DD turbines with a capacity of 14 MW, excluding power boost, and is scheduled to be commissioned in 2027.

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