The UK wastes over £1.5 billion a year paying wind farms to switch off because the grid cannot handle the electricity they generate at night, while simultaneously facing a £30 billion bill to electrify 15,000 kilometres of railway track by 2040. This project proposes a single solution to both problems: networked energy hubs. These are modular microgrids—combining battery storage, local renewable generation, and connections to both the power grid and railway power lines—that can absorb cheap, surplus wind electricity overnight and discharge it to run trains during the day. When linked via a communications network, the hubs form a virtual power plant that can also sell grid-stabilising services like frequency and voltage control. If successful, the technology could avoid building overhead power lines for at least 3,000 kilometres of rural track, saving more than £3 billion in capital costs. The aggregated battery storage across roughly 500 hubs would total about 2 gigawatt-hours, cutting curtailment costs by an estimated £16 million per year. The same approach could later be scaled to power London Underground, electric roads, and motorway charging stations.
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Context The UK Government’s net zero strategy predicts a 60% increase in electricity demand due to the switching of energy supply modes from fossil fuel to electricity in major sectors including transport. Transport is currently the largest emitting sector, accounting for 29.1% in 2023 and decarbonizing all forms of transport is a national key priority. Railway is a cleaner transport mode, and the UK’s largest electricity consumer (~4 TWh p.a. ~1.2% of UK total). The railway's decarbonisation ambitions to phase out diesel trains by 2040 will result in a major increase in electricity demand (~ 2TWh), requiring up to £30 billion investment to electrify/decarbonize ~15,000 single track kilometre (stk) rail. The challenge the project addresses Transport electrification requires extensive updates of both the power and transport networks, which are extremely expensive and time-consuming to deploy, e.g. rail electrification costs £1~2.5m per stk, while the current lead times for critical new carbon projects to connect to the power grid are now over 15 years, and investment in transmission capacity is falling behind deployment, leading to >£1Bn cost of managing constraints. For example, in 2021, it was reported that 7TWh electricity including 2.3 TWh wind power was curtailed at a costing £1.5billion. Aims and objectives To address the dual challenges of electricity curtailment due to congestion and increased electricity demand from transport electrification in a whole system approach, this project aims to exploit the commercial application of the Networked Energy Hubs concept integrating technologies developed by Project lead in previous EPSRC projects (EP/L001063/1, EP/R030243/1 and EP/P004636/1), transforming the inflexible transport energy demands into flexible loads, absorbing excessive electricity during the night which otherwise will be curtailed to power trains and potentially road haulage in the daytime. The energy hubs are modular microgrid solutions that integrate battery storage and local renewable generation, interfacing with both the power grid and traction power supply network for trains. When they are networked and controlled via a communication network, they form virtual power plants to provide aggregated flexibility and ancillary services to the power grid, including wind power curtailment reduction, demand flexibility service, and frequency and voltage services. The project has 6 coherent work-packages to achieve the following objectives: Develop a stakeholder network and engage with key stakeholders to scope commercial applications of the networked energy hub technology (WP1). Identify use cases for railway and road electrification and decarbonization (WP2). Conduct desktop feasibility study including data analysis and initial design (WP3). Conduct simulation studies and hardware-in-loop experimental validation (WP4). Assess the technological transferability, including off-shelf solutions, communication infrastructure, and cyber security issues (WP5). Conduct coast benefit analysis and project dissemination (WP6). Potential applications and benefits The project will first explore applications to the GB railway network in decarbonizing ~15,000 stk non-electrified routes, avoid constructing overhead line for at least 3,000 stk track in rural areas which can instead be served by battery trains that are powered by ~500 networked energy hubs, saving > £3billion CAPEX. The aggregated battery storage in these networked hubs would be c. 2GWh, which can be used to absorb excessive electricity at night and power trains by day, reducing curtailment costs by c. £16m per year. The same technology can also be scaled and applied to TfL underground, electric roads, and EV charging stations in cities and along the strategic road network.
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