Osprey Charging deploys BESS for the first time at UK EV charging site

Osprey Charging has installed the first battery energy storage system on its UK charging network, integrating it with three 75kW rapid charge points at the Lamb & Flag site on the A40 near Abergavenny in Wales.

The project, delivered with Palmer Energy Technology, will test how battery storage performs alongside a low-voltage grid connection at an operational public charging site. Osprey says the findings will inform where further battery installations make technical and commercial sense. 

To help it determine how the battery is performing, it’ll use the Iris software platform to monitor energy entering and leaving the battery, its interaction with charging demand and the resulting costs. Palmer’s battery and energy management systems will then control the storage installation.

In principle, the battery can supplement the grid supply when several vehicles are charging and recharge when demand is lower. That should allow Osprey to make better use of an existing connection or avoid increasing its capacity. The full benefit of a BESS will obviously depend on its power and usable energy capacity, the site load profile, electricity tariff and agreed grid import limit.

It’s not the first time a chargepoint operator has turned to battery energy storage to help deploy EV charging. In fact, it’s increasingly common at rapid and ultra-rapid charging sites, with BYD’s Flash Charging technology leveraging it to achieve the massive 1,500 kW charging speeds. 

Faster charging speeds are not the only benefit of BESS at EV charging sites, however. The technology is also growing in popularity amid concern over the fixed network costs faced by public charging operators. ChargeUK said in 2025 that standing charges had increased by up to 462% at rapid and ultra-rapid charging sites following changes to network charging arrangements. It also reported that these charges could represent up to 70% of total energy costs at some rapid sites. 

While storage will not, by itself, remove fixed residual network charges. Its value is more likely to come from avoiding or deferring a larger connection, limiting import against an agreed capacity or shifting some electricity consumption into lower-cost periods. The commercial result will therefore be highly site-specific.

That’s why Osprey is not planning to roll-out energy storage to every site. In fact, Marcus Lewis, Head of Development at Osprey, said the company intended to be selective. 

“This isn’t a PR stunt,” he said. “Our trial sites will equip us with crucial analysis and guide the roll-out to come.”