By 2030, the UK’s electricity grid must run almost entirely on low-carbon power while also absorbing demand from electric vehicles and heat pumps—a transformation that could slash the use of existing power plants, cables, and transformers to a fraction of their current capacity. This research tackles a hidden cost of decarbonisation: system integration. As renewable generation surges from today’s levels to 35–40% of demand by 2020 and beyond, the grid’s conventional assets will sit idle much of the time, driving up costs. Large-scale energy storage could reverse that waste, but current market rules, grid controls, and investment practices make it impossible to calculate storage’s true economic and environmental value. The team will develop new analytical tools to quantify those benefits, then push forward four storage technologies—sodium-ion batteries, redox flow batteries, supercapacitors, and thermal energy storage—chosen for their grid-scale potential and UK commercial opportunities. If successful, the work will produce a roadmap for deploying storage in UK networks, policy recommendations to support that deployment, and a blueprint for controlling storage on distribution grids. The result could be a cheaper, more reliable low-carbon electricity system that keeps the lights on without breaking the bank.
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The UK electricity system faces challenges of unprecedented proportions. It is expected that 35 to 40% of the UK electricity demand will be met by renewable generation by 2020, an order of magnitude increase from the present levels. In the context of the targets proposed by the UK Climate Change Committee it is expected that the electricity sector would be almost entirely decarbonised by 2030 with significantly increased levels of electricity production and demand driven by the incorporation of heat and transport sectors into the electricity system. The key concerns are associated with system integration costs driven by radical changes on both the supply and the demand side of the UK low-carbon system. Our analysis to date suggests that a low-carbon electricity future would lead to a massive reduction in the utilisation of conventional electricity generation, transmission and distribution assets. The large-scale deployment of energy storage could mitigate this reduction in utilisation, producing significant savings. In this context, the proposed research aims at (i) developing novel approaches for evaluating the economic and environmental benefits of a range of energy storage technologies that could enhance efficiency of system operation and increase asset utilization; and (ii) innovation around 4 storage technologies; Na-ion, redox flow batteries (RFB), supercapacitors, and thermal energy storage (TES). These have been selected because of their relevance to grid-scale storage applications, their potential for transformative research, our strong and world-leading research track record on these topics and UK opportunities for exploitation of the innovations arising. At the heart of our proposal is a whole systems approach, recognising the need for electrical network experts to work with experts in control, converters and storage, to develop optimum solutions and options for a range of future energy scenarios. This is essential if we are to properly take into account constraints imposed by the network on the storage technologies, and in return limitations imposed by the storage technologies on the network. Our work places emphasis on future energy scenarios relevant to the UK, but the tools, methods and technologies we develop will have wide application. Our work will provide strategic insights and direction to a wide range of stakeholders regarding the development and integration of energy storage technologies in future low carbon electricity grids, and is inspired by both (i) limitations in current grid regulation, market operation, grid investment and control practices that prevent the role of energy storage being understood and its economic and environmental value quantified, and (ii) existing barriers to the development and deployment of cost effective energy storage solutions for grid application. Key outputs from this programme will be; a roadmap for the development of grid scale storage suited to application in the UK; an analysis of policy options that would appropriately support the deployment of storage in the UK; a blueprint for the control of storage in UK distribution networks; patents and high impact papers relating to breakthrough innovations in energy storage technologies; new tools and techniques to analyse the integration of storage into low carbon electrical networks; and a cohort of researchers and PhD students with the correct skills and experience needed to support the future research, development and deployment in this area.
Chris Dent (Co-Investigator)Clare Grey (Co-Investigator)Daniel Rogers (Co-Investigator)Goran Strbac (Principal Investigator)Janusz Bialek (Co-Investigator)Nigel Brandon (Co-Investigator)P Bruce (Co-Investigator)Patrick Grant (Co-Investigator)Peter Hall (Co-Investigator)Philip Taylor (Co-Investigator)Richard Green (Co-Investigator)Yulong Ding (Co-Investigator)Zheng Xiao Guo (Co-Investigator)
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