UK energy storage pipeline incompatible with net zero grid – report
A new report from Balance Power demonstrates that the UK’s current electricity storage pipeline will deliver projects that will be ultimately incompatible with achieving an optimal net zero grid.
This is according to Balance Power’s Are we developing the right electricity storage system (ESS) projects to help deliver net zero?, where the UK-based storage and peaker tech specialist company calls on government and energy industry stakeholders to shift gears in their ESS project pipelines.
At present, states Balance Power, projects are heavily weighted towards 2hr duration due to improved project returns.
However, 8hr duration projects provide the best balance between having sufficient operational flexibility to prevent excessive grid actions and minimising cost and time of connection through delivering more MWh capacity per connection.
Commenting on the report and its findings, Phil Thompson, CEO of Balance Power, stated: “With hindsight, the UK should have ensured that the technical needs of operating a net zero grid network and the business models driving the project development cycle are fully aligned, long before the projects developers are trying to connect were put forward.
“To lose this momentum due to the significant gridlocks we’re experiencing will have serious, long-term effects on our ability to reach and sustain a net zero grid.”
Readdressing the pipeline
To make this a reality and help reach net zero, Balance Power calls on the government to consider re-engineering business models and support mechanisms of longer-duration projects, which they state would commercially incentivise developers towards them as their designs of choice.
Not only will this address connectivity issues, adds Balance Power. It may also bypass the need for expensive upgrades such as extra transformers at connection points to allow additional power generation or storage connections.
Moreover, the company’s analysis highlights that the electricity storage marketplace is too orientated on the power [GW] of electricity storage projects rather than the growing importance of capacity [GWh].
In the industry’s infancy, power of electricity storage projects was more important as this was lacking, but with effective marketplace saturation of approximately 118GW connections, the marketplace requires reorientation to capacity to achieve the technical goals of operating a net-zero grid.
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To help facilitate this, the report states how industry stakeholders should explore the MWh/GWh approach and link all associated costs and revenues to this. In doing so, National Grid ESO and other stakeholders would be able to understand where the grid is in comparison with long-term capacity [GWh] targets, helping to drive targeted development.
Balance Power also observed that the requirement for dispatchable generation, which can be called upon on demand and is often fossil-fuel-fired, is the same independent of the electricity storage capacity [GWh] deployed.
According to the company, modelling from 2022 found two separate instances where demand exceeded net zero generation over multiple weeks, jeopardising security of supply if dispatchable generation was not available.
These cannot be simply treated as anomalies, they state. Future grid design needs to consider this issue by ensuring sufficient net zero compliant dispatchable generation is available, such as hydrogen, before existing dispatchable generation is decommissioned.
Nick Provost, commercial manager and author of the report says: “All stakeholders must ensure that the electricity storage business models and technical needs are aligned or we all risk losing out on a net zero grid system. Clean, dispatchable electricity generation technology investment is essential to avoid jeopardising our security of supply, and critically, our analysis suggests that facilitating 8hr duration electricity storage should be the goal.”
Against their report findings, and the estimated up to a 15-year wait for new energy projects, Balance Power is calling on regulatory bodies, such as Ofgem, and National Grid to review how they might incentivise the market to increase the duration of storage projects, thus helping to improve connection timeframes.
