Utility Week

Advertising feature Community Earlier this year WPD provided a connection for the Trent Basin development, home to Europe's largest community energy battery. The 500kW (2.1MWh) Tesla battery system stores the energy produced by the site's dedicated 700-photo-voltaic unit solar farm and will also cater for a further 900 panels that will be installed on houses as they are built. The project was the first of its kind in the region but hasn't been the last. 11kV Planner Lee Barnett, who managed the connection request, said: "Other customers are learning from this project and combining low carbon technologies to create community focused energy distribution. This has led to connection applications for a further five similar smaller scale projects in our region. "Potentially the learning from the project could benefit millions of customers worldwide by changing the way energy is produced and consumed within communities." WPD's Network Strategy Team Manager Ben Godfrey agrees that the potential of community energy storage is enormous. "As customers become more active in how they generate and consume energy, projects like Trent Basin will offer us a wider range of options to keep the lights on." Verdict: High technology costs have been a barrier but an increasing number of local authorities are looking for schemes that have a low carbon footprint. They are also proving popular with buyers. As a result, more developers are looking at the options: expect this form of battery storage to boom. Constraints These are the areas of the network where at peak times the levels of future demand could exceed the capacity available or where the amount of electricity that could be generated is greater than the capacity of the network to transport it to where it's needed. Constraints can cause delays for customers wanting to connect to the network or increase the amount of electricity they use as operators have to reinforce it. For generators, constraints mean the power they could generate can't be exported onto the network at peak times. Traditionally, a power plant whose generation was not needed would simply not generate and the fuel it would have burnt would be saved for another day. But for wind and solar, whose generating ability depends on the weather, the inability to export onto the network means potential low carbon electricity is lost, never to be recovered. Solar in particular tends to be at maximum generation when demand on the network is low and the power it can provide isn't required in the locations where it's being generated. Placing batteries at constraint points to store energy at times of peak generation and release energy at times of peak demand seems to be a logical solution if the country is to increase the amount of renewable electricity it uses but currently the market is not ready. Tony Berndes explained: "Understandably, investors are looking for fully flexible connections that will offer them maximum revenue on their investment across multiple services, rather than being limited to one aspect of what the local network requires. "At the moment the commercial and market arrangements that will leave all parties satisfied are not fully developed." But if the country is serious about meeting climate change targets it can't afford to waste renewable generation. Co-locating batteries and solar farms is an obvious solution – and one Ofgem promotes through Renewables Obligation Certificates. Verdict: Financial issues mean battery storage to solve constraints is a tough nut to crack. Co-location is a more exciting prospect. Solar panels at Trent Basin Battery units at Trent Basin "Potentially the learning from the project could benefit millions of customers worldwide..." UTILITY WEEK | 18TH - 24TH MAY 2018 | 29

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