Some academics have announced that the UK is in need of an ‘energy revolution’. The constant drive to keep prices low, combined with the challenges of producing low carbon energy and meeting the need for new capacity, are pushing the country to breaking point. The energy value chain is undergoing an intense rebalance, and it’s difficult to know which of our cards to play in order get a safe future energy mix. There’s a lot of focus on low-carbon energy at the moment, but shouldn’t we be addressing the issue of storage first and foremost?
Switching to low carbon energy is a great step, and it’s driven multi-million pound investment in new energy generating assets in the last decade alone in the UK. Traditionally, our energy was sourced from huge, central hub-like locations, but we’re now increasingly gathering our energy from localised sources and external, remote regions. It’s predicted that in 2014, when the Electricity Market Reform (ERM) begins and the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme comes into affect, offering guaranteed prices for those who invest in nuclear or off-shore wind projects, interest and cash are going to carry on flowing. This means that the UK is going to have big options moving into the next decade. Solar, wind and nuclear are all key players in the future of our energy generation, but we seem to overlook one vital element: storage.
What role does energy storage play? It’s absolutely crucial if we want to manage our national grid effectively. With a good level of energy storage, the grid can move electricity capacity from one time of day to another – thus impacting tariffs and giving us better deals, allowing the nation to benefit all of the time rather than simply when there’s an influx. It can help smooth out the peaks and troughs of adapting a low carbon energy network full-time, which can by its very nature be unreliable. There are other options for customers too. If you’re a large energy user with the capactiy for storage, you’d be able to bulk purchase energy off-peak, and then store it and use it anytime you like. This is something which is currently not possible, but could be with development of energy storage options.
To put this into perspective, the Imperial College carried out a study which found that by 2050, £10 billion each year could be saved for consumers if the UK had the capacity to hold 25 Gigawatts. Currently, the UK can only hold 2 Gigawatts, and many academics say that this is simply not enough.
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