Plans to turn a disused coal plant site into one of the world’s largest battery hubs storing power from North Sea wind farms have been unveiled in the UK.

Developer The Banks Group aims to deploy up to 2.8GWh of storage at the former Thorpe Marsh power station near Doncaster in northeast England (see map at foot).

The transformation of Thorpe Marsh – disused since 1994 and about 70km from the North Sea coast – would use the 65-hectare site’s 1.45GW connection to the UK National Grid to get huge amounts of green power onto the network.

The developer claimed the giant facility would “be the largest battery energy storage system currently being planned in the UK, and one of the largest anywhere in the world”.

Lewis Stokes, senior community relations manager at The Banks Group, said: “Thorpe Marsh’s existing grid connection and its proximity to where much of the energy that will be produced by the east coast’s growing portfolio of wind farms will come ashore makes it an excellent location for this project.”

Dealing with variable power from its burgeoning offshore wind fleet – targeted to hit 50GW by 2030 and with a pipeline of around 90GW of potential projects – is a live issue for the UK, with readiness of the grid and ability to smooth supply both key priorities.

The Banks Group is poised to begin public consultations over the plans, with work at the site, whose giant cooling towers were demolished a decade ago, beginning as soon as 2024 if they are approved.

The first phase of the project would be to recover up to 2.25 million tonnes of pulverised fuel ash to be used as a secondary aggregate to make concrete blocks.

Former coal-fired power sites, which are often located near coastlines and have chunky grid connections in place, have emerged as favourite candidates around the world to act as staging posts for offshore wind power, with schemes unveiled in the US and Australia.