Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | NOVEMBER 2021 | 11 Special report cant consumer engagement. That amounts to a change of mindset in our relationship with energy and will require a number of levers to bring that change about. Ovo and Octopus have introduced a exible EV charging tari to move the demand during the night, but it is too early to see the overall value. Maria Brucoli, smart energy systems man- ager at EDF, says that while there is huge opportunity to tap into EVs and heating devices in future, grid-scale batteries have a big part to play with another 30GW of growth expected by 2050. "There is currently around 10GW of low-carbon exibility available to the UK power market. This includes 4GW of electricity storage (3GW pumped hydro storage and 1GW of lithium-ion batteries) and 6GW of electricity interconnectors," she notes, adding: "There is a growing pipeline of energy storage and interconnector pro- jects, but the " nal sum is short compared to the estimates from the latest Smart Systems Flexibility plan developed by BEIS together with Ofgem and published in July." Their report, Transitioning to a Net Zero Energy System: Smart Systems and Flexibil- ity Plan 2021, suggests that to meet the net- zero target set for 2050 by the sixth carbon budget, while at the same time operating a secure and e™ cient energy system, a total of 30GW of low-carbon exibility will be required by 2030 and 60GW by 2050. However, if exibility from batteries is to be ramped up, markets need to be devel- oped that put a value on their services. In the past they may only serve one function, but to be commercially viable they need to o er a number of functions – or "value stack", says Hardy, adding: "To make value-stacking work, the systems needs to know what assets are connected and assets need to realise the value of the action they take." Long-term exibility For all the work going on in this " eld, gov- ernment and the industry has yet to get to grips with the scale of exibility needed in the system, says Dr Keith MacLean, manag- ing director of Providence Policy. MacLean, along with Dr Grant Wilson and Noah Godfrey of the Energy Informatics Group at the Birmingham Energy Institute, have been looking at the exibility challenge of replacing natural gas. They published their " ndings in September in a paper Net Zero – Keeping the Energy System Balanced. Says MacLean: "At the moment, the heavy li¢ ing in balancing Great Britain's electric- ity and heat sectors is done by natural gas, capable of contributing 3-4TWh towards managing imbalance daily, and over 100TWh seasonally. "We did some work to check on the orders of magnitude of balancing needed in the future. It will be basically the storage capac- ity that we have with natural gas." As MacLean points out, that's a fuel that can be stored and transported and used when and where it's needed and that ena- bles the di erence in needs between summer and winter to be bridged, especially for heat. "We need to understand that heat in par- ticular imposes a seasonal variation and a seasonal imbalance in what we need that requires tens of terawatt-hours of capacity." MacLean adds: "For shorter scale, lower energy applications you can use batteries, pump storage and demand-side manage- ment, but they don't solve the key challenge we have, which is the longer time scales. And when we talk about the exibility that domestic consumers can o er, that is on the intraday level – which means shi¢ ing some- thing from the morning to the a¢ ernoon, or from the rush hour to the quiet times. We have got a bit myopic and preoccupied with the intraday stu , and without a clear idea of the bigger challenge. "Most batteries in the UK are working in a time scale of up to one or possibly two hours, but what we need to balance the system are things capable of working over many days, over seasons and in some instances over years, and that's what natural gas, previously coal, oil or wood have allowed us to do." Denise Chevin, freelance journalist in association with How UK utilities are fighting climate change A U lity Week Insight report in associa on with Capgemini October 2021 COP26 AND BEYOND Source: Na onal Grid/ Future Energy Scenarios 2020/Carbon Trust/ Flexibility in Great Britain Electricity genera on capacity (GW) Installed capacity Electricity storage 4 Biomass 4 Gas 38 Interconnectors 5 55 51 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Electricity output (TWh) Pumped hydro 71.3% Ba ery 26.7% Liquid air 0.3% Taken from COP26 and Beyond: How UK Utilities are Fighting Climate Change To read about possible solutions to the issues raised in this article, download the full report, COP26 and Beyond: How UK Utilities are Fighting Climate Change at https://utilityweek.co.uk/cop26-and- beyond/ "As a country if we're going to hit our net zero ambitions then the deployment of fl exibility is going to be absolutely critical." Andy Huthwaite, director of ED2 programme, SSEN Distribution What else is in the report: 1 Energy generation What is the optimum mix of technologies to reach net zero by 2050? 2 Resilience against climate change The challenge of improving network resilience and water infrastructure as weather patterns change. 3 Smart systems and flexibility Current thinking in balancing the system, the role of EVs and changing consumer behaviour. 4 Heating and the role of hydrogen Can hydrogen replace gas or will safety and technical issues scale back an ambitious national roll out? 5 Biodiversity And Environmental Stewardship How energy and water companies are reducing their environmental impact.

• Cover