The Crown Estate offers development land in lease for pumped hydro power project

The Crown Estate has approved a land lease to Snowdonia Pumped Hydro (SPH) for developing Glyn Rhonwy facility near Llanberis in the UK.

According to the agreement signed between the two firms, the state-owned landowner has allotted 13ha land for the project which will feature the innovative pumped hydro technology.

The project is expected to have a generation capacity of 100MW and has been scheduled to be operational in 2019.

Construction of the facility is expected to involve an investment of £160m.

The Crown Estate portfolio manager for Wales said: "As an active landowner, we’re always looking for opportunities to enhance the value of our holdings, whether that’s through facilitating renewable energy or enhancing the productivity of rural land.

"We’re pleased to be enabling SPH’s plans for a pumped hydro scheme that could deliver long term benefits to the local community but also contribute to a secure and sustainable energy supply for the nation as a whole."

Snowdonia Pumped Hydro is a subsidiary of Quarry Battery.

Quarry Battery chairman Peter Taylor said: "By continuing to utilise unconventional sites such as the abandoned quarry on The Crown Estate’s land, Britain can realise an additional 15 GW of grid-scale storage using pumped hydro technology alone. This agreement is an important first step in Britain meeting its storage needs."

Equipped with pumped hydro technology, the plant will transport water first to a reservoir on the upper slope of Cefn-Du during low electricity demand for storage. The stored water will be released back during high demand situations to a lower reservoir for re-generating hydro electricity.