Speaking at the Tuesday launch of then Institution of Civil Engineers’ new report, Electricity Storage: Realising the Potential, ICE Energy Policy Manager Gavin Miller set out the benefits of electricity storage. He said – if applied – the technology would help electricity grid operators; ease the tightening of capacity margins of the electricity grid, meet increasing peak demand for electricity, manage the intermittency of renewables, meet carbon and emissions targets, extend the lifespan of ageing infrastructure, and stem increasing electricity costs.
ICE’s report identifies the regulatory and policy barriers – cutting red tape – as a way of helping to encourage investment and deployment of electricity storage. It says a mix of electricity storage technologies will be needed to ensure the efficient distribution and generation of electricity, and meet the projected surge in demand for electricity.
One of the report authors, Dr Philipp Grünewald, a Research Fellow at Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford commented ahead of the event that storage had the potential help solve the ‘energy trilemma’ – the challenge of producing secure, affordable and clean energy.
He said, “Ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris next month, leaders from across the world are now looking to engineers for practical ways to respond to climate change. It is time to realise the potential of electricity storage as a better way of operating the electricity system, and recognise it as a driver of skilled jobs and innovation.”
Speaking for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Sam Balch, Smart Energy Team Lead, explained how new data and communications technologies had created an opportunity to “do things differently,” with smarter and more flexible solutions allowing government and industry to respond to challenges in a more cost effective way.
The department welcomed ICE’s report, with Balch confirming ICE’s “useful contribution to an evolving policy area.” He also revealed attempts were being made by both his department and industry to ‘level the playing field’ by removing regulatory barriers, but said questions around utilisation and ownership of storage still remained.
Recognising electricity storage as a means of balancing surges and troughs in the power network, Shadow DECC Minister Alan Whitehead commented that storage “is not just an interesting innovation for the future but needs to come to the fore in the near term”.
Judith Ross, Head of Network Regulation Policy at Ofgem suggested that current legislation and licensing arrangements did not fully apply to electricity storage capabilities and agreed that greater clarity will help encourage investment in the necessary infrastructure. She added that commercial arrangements and industry led codes were particularly important in making deployment of electricity storage a reality.
John Hayling, Future Networks Investment, Policy & Low Carbon Development Manager spoke about his experience working on UK Power Networks’ new lithium ion battery at Leighton Buzzard – a six megawatt electricity storage facility opened by Energy Secretary Amber Rudd last year.
Expanding on one of the report’s key recommendations, Hayling said storage the rules governing electricity distribution and generation do not recognise storage units and facilities as ‘unique entities’ – an independent means of electricity generation or distribution. Storage, he said, instead is classed as a sub-set of electricity generation, effectively hitting storage operators with double charges. Hayling commented there is a widespread view across both the UK and Europe that electricity storage needs to be treated differently by regulators for it to operate properly.
ICE Director General Nick Baveystock, who chaired the discussion, commented that in contrast to other types of infrastructure, where consumers expect a level of variation such as transport, society expects the electricity infrastructure to be constant and unfailing. Baveystock also noted that while the evolution of storage technologies allows for better deployment of electricity and additional storage capability to manage supply and demand, the current regulatory framework has not kept pace with technological developments.
While welcoming the fact that batteries were coming to the fore across Europe as a means of balancing power networks, Director at Pöyry Management Consulting Dr Phil Hare added that the full range of potential sources of revenue from storage needed to be explored.
To read the Electricity Storage: Realising the Potential, or a summary of the report,
click here.