An Energy Research Partnership report produced in collaboration with Energy Systems Catapult: This report seeks to understand the required approaches to delivering resilience within Net Zero energy systems. Key messages include:
- Resilience in the Energy Industry is a New Challenge: Achieving Net Zero requires a fundamentally different approach to resilience compared to today.
- Systems Approach: getting a resilient and affordable energy system needs us to recognise the increasing interdependency of previously siloed systems.
- Strategic Tradeoffs are Essential: We must consciously balance the design of the energy system, public involvement, and climate change. It is not solely a technical challenge, concious choices should be made.
- Delivery Needs Organisation (Clear Roles, Metrics, and New Capabilities): It’s crucial to define responsibilities, starting with the NESO, to develop new metrics, and build the capabilities to integrate resilience-thinking throughout the sector.
view full report here: ERP Resilience report
“The ERP report clearly recognises that resilience of the Net Zero energy system is not only essential but also is not solely a technical challenge.” Professor Paul Monks, DESNZ Chief Scientific Adviser
“Resilience in our Net Zero Energy System” is a forward-thinking report that addresses one of the most critical challenges of our time: ensuring the resilience of the UK’s energy system as we transition to Net Zero. This paper, produced by the Energy Research Partnership in collaboration with Energy Systems Catapult, delves into the multifaceted nature of resilience, encompassing technical, societal, and governance aspects. It underscores the necessity of a whole-system approach to maintain energy reliability amidst evolving demands and climate change impacts. The insights and recommendations provided are crucial for safeguarding our energy infrastructure, which is the backbone of our economy, health, and modern society. The report’s emphasis on integrating resilience into planning and investments, fostering innovation, and ensuring clear governance and public engagement is vital. It highlights the urgent need for coordinated action and strategic foresight to navigate the complexities of the Net Zero transition. In a time marked by unprecedented environmental and geopolitical challenges, this report serves as a clarion call for proactive measures to build a resilient, low-carbon energy system. It is a pivotal resource for policymakers, industry leaders, and all stakeholders committed to securing a sustainable and resilient energy future for the UK.” Ben Kuchta CEng FIGEM FIET MIAM MIoL, Group Director of Resilience and Crisis Management at National Grid PLC
The Energy Research Partnership (ERP) has brought together a range of stakeholders from across the energy sector to develop a common view on the future resilience of the UK Electricity System.
The work has identified a range of emerging trends that are changing the way we operate the electricity system and will need to be acted upon to assure we have a resilient electricity system in the future. In response to these trends a number of recommendations have been made that require action over the next decade to assure resilience of the electricity system in the future.
The ERP believes is important to recognise that there may be low regret decisions and investments that we can make in anticipation of these future trends, with an overall lower cost and greater system wide benefit than if we respond to them as they arise. A key enabler to making these decisions will be achieving cross industry agreement on what we mean by resilience and how we measure it. In producing the report, the ERP has already started this process, and brought together a wide range of industry and government players to enter this debate.
Looking forward, much more needs to be done. The industry needs to engage with society and business to clearly establish their needs and expectations and how they can be met. This in turn should help shape and inform government and policy, with a new resilience taskforce working across the energy sector to help lead the changes. In particular, resilience needs to be ‘baked in’ to the regulatory regime, to ensure that together, all players can reduce the impact of any threat to network infrastructure, either proactively through design or by being ready to respond quickly to restore energy supplies. The report highlights the need to continue work with government agencies to assess cyber security risks and put in place the necessary protection to counter any potential threat.
Above all, the ERP anticipates that by assuring we have a resilient energy system in the future, whatever threats may try to compromise its operation, we will continue to make the UK an attractive place to build the global businesses of the 21st century.
Resilience Event
The ERP will be holding a Resilience Event in January at the Energy Systems Catapult in Birmingham where the report and its findings will be presented and discussed by key Working Group Members. If you would like to attend this event, please register in advance at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/erp-future-resilience-of-the-uk-electricity-system-tickets-52904543915
Project Scope
The project scope was developed with support from Working Group Members (ERP members and project advisors). This report is based on information provided by each Working Group Member where they set out their organisation’s view on the UK electricity system resilience and the potential future impact of the changing energy landscape. All working group members discussed and shared findings at a workshop held at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in June 2018. The industry views from the responses submitted, and the workshop are represented in this report.
Resilience Working Group
ERP Members
ABB
Arup
Atkins, member of SNC-Lavalin Group
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
EDF Energy
Environment Agency
Energy Systems Catapult
National Grid Electricity Transmission
National Infrastructure Commission
Welsh Government
Project Advisors
Energy Networks Association
Electricity North West Ltd
Northern Power Grid
Scottish Power Energy Networks
UK Power Networks
Scottish and Southern Electricity
University of Manchester
Hydrogen is already entering the energy system and appears to be a convincing pathway to decarbonise heat and transport. Its widespread use requires deliberate intervention, which includes a strategic, long-term plan to make hydrogen zero-carbon and to address challenges, including its impact on energy security.
The biggest challenges are where large volumes of hydrogen will come from and how to decarbonise it. The report highlights concerns around the associated costs and deliverability of the necessary steam methane reforming plant and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) infrastructure needed to handle the large volumes of CO2.
Natural gas will be used to produce a majority of the hydrogen, as it is cheaper than from electricity, but residual emissions from CCS and hydrocarbon extraction are significant and will need to be addressed. Surplus electricity from wind will produce only a small fraction of the hydrogen needed for heat: meeting this demand with electricity alone would require about 70 GW of additional nuclear capacity – seven times current capacity.
Replacing natural gas with hydrogen for heating will increase gas consumption and produce more CO2. Some of the increase could be offset by measures to reduce energy demand for heat. Blending into the gas supply provides little carbon reduction, even at high blends, and would be expensive, so switching has to be done by area and straight to 100% hydrogen.
Imports of natural gas mean most of the upstream emissions from extraction are likely to be outside the UK. This may be an issue for meeting global climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement.
Zero-carbon hydrogen could be imported from sunny regions, such as North Africa, using very-high temperature solar thermal. But these are unlikely to be available to meet early bulk demand.
Hydrogen is already playing a valuable, diffuse role in the energy system and helping to manage the electricity grid, fuel vehicle fleets and industry. These niche applications can develop without hydrogen from natural gas, but will benefit from removing regulatory and market barriers to help them become viable.
Recommendations
- Enable early, stand-alone, hydrogen technologies.
- Remove regulatory barriers to enable diffuse use of hydrogen.
- Plan for large-scale use of hydrogen to address carbon emissions and energy security implications. The following are needed if hydrogen is used widely in heat and transport:
- Long-term strategic plan for zero-carbon hydrogen.
- CCS built before 2030, to enable large-scale use of hydrogen.
- Assess energy security implications of import dependency.
- Insulate buildings to a high standard, to offset increases in gas consumption.
- Early engagement with publics will be essential.
- Evaluate need and locations of large-scale hydrogen storage.
- Clear signal to enable investment by developers and equipment providers.
- Robust understanding of safety, with meaningful regulation.
- Whole system approach to hydrogen, to evaluate potential in the energy system.
- Whole system, sustainability criteria should be used to evaluate the benefits
- Realise cross-sector benefits to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
- Support UK industry and expertise to capitalise on emerging global markets.
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Follow-up activities
This report leads into ERP’s project on the transition to low-carbon heat.
Steering Group
- Prof Neville Jackson – Ricardo (Chair)
- Den Gamer – ETI
- Peter Bance – Origami Investments
The project consulted widely with industry and academia and draws on a large number of published reports and papers.
Further information
Please contact Richard Heap from the ERP Analysis Team.
Meeting the 2050 targets means the UK energy system will need to transition to low-carbon heat. Changes will be needed to how we heat our homes, buildings and industry. Supplying natural gas or oil directly into homes will need to be replaced by a decarbonised gas or by electric heating or heat network.
But it is not a simple choice: each option has challenges that could limit their deployment. A combination of options is likely to be required; no one option may not dominate, as natural gas currently does. Demand reduction will be an essential part of a cost-effective transition.
The scale of the challenge should not be underestimated. The social aspects are as challenging as the technical. The capital investment means the cost of heating will rise during the transition.
Timing is crucial. Preparations need to begin now, to inform the long investment cycles over the next 30 years.
Several low-carbon heating options need to be pursued in parallel now. Early in 2020s, critical actions and decisions will need to be taken, by Government, to avoid closing-off options, undermining their potential, or increasing their costs.
- Determining the extent to which hydrogen could be used to decarbonise the gas system, is critical. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will be essential.
- Government support for trials of key technologies is needed now.
- No and low-regrets options should be supported now.
- High efficiency standards for new-buildings need to be set and enforced.
- A robust retrofit energy efficiency programme for existing buildings.
Addressing the social aspects of the transition needs to be a priority and requires early engagement with the public, alongside the development and coordination of financial policies, incentives, regulations and business models.
- Engagement with the public will be crucial and needs to start now.
- A new narrative for heating and hot water, to recognise that costs will increase.
- Energy efficiency should be pursued to reduce the costs.
- Decide how to address the distributional impacts.
- Prioritise new financing mechanisms and market structures.
A long-term strategy to manage the transition, which engages with the public and coordinates the diverse range of parties, with a clear decision-making framework.
- Integrate decisions on heat with transport, industry and power generation.
- A heat delivery body to facilitate national, local and commercial decision making.
- Early engagement with the public will be crucial – as will a clear narrative
Project Events
The project’s report was launched at an event in October 2017. For more information, please contact Richard Heap.
A workshop on 18 July 2017 tested the analysis on the deployment potential and challenges of the various low-carbon heating options. Details of the workshop can be found here.
January 2017 ERP convened an industry workshop to explore the challenges of deploying heat pumps (see project outputs for a note of the meeting).
The low-carbon heat project was launched in October 2016 (more information is available on the event page).
Steering Group
- Carl Arntzen, Bosch Thermotechology (Steering Group Chair)
- Chris Jofeh, ARUP
- Steven Cowan, Atkins
- Olivia Absalom & Andy Davey, BEIS (observer)
- Joe Cosier & Simon Messenger, Energy Saving Trust
- Jeff Douglas, Energy Systems Catapult
- Sarah Deasley, Frontier Economics
- Mark Thompson, Innovate UK
- Janet Mather, National Grid, Gas SO
- Rufus Ford, SSE (seconded to BEIS)
- Kathleen Robertson, Scottish Government
- Keith MacLean, Independent / UKERC
- Ron Loveland, Welsh Government
- Amber Sharick, UKERC
Additional Sponsors
We would like to thank the following organisations for providing additional funding that allowed the project to run to completion. They also provided additional technical input and advice.
Bosch
Energy Saving Trust
Innovate UK
Cadent
Energy & Utilities Alliance EUA
BEIS
SGN
Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers IGEM
Background
Within its latest work, ERP considers storage as a system-wide service for the storage of energy in multiple forms. The financial, legal, political, commercial and regulatory barriers to electrical, thermal, gas, hydrogen and transport storage are addressed.
ERP’s work in 2011 highlighted that Energy Storage is not a panacea – there are other competing options (e.g. Interconnection or Demand-Side Response). Under the right conditions however -where the system shows a clear need, or a market-pull – Energy Storage has the potential to provide multiple benefits to the energy system.
ERP notes that Energy Storage capabilities are already at the heart of our energy system – in the form of fossil fuels which currently provide large volumes of long duration storage over a period of months. Economic as well technical solutions are therefore already in existence. However, new challenges are being created by changes to our current system e.g. renewable technologies, electrification of heat and transport, the phasing out of coal, discussions over the future role of gas, and alternative options using Hydrogen (e.g. for power-to-gas, storage and transport). A key challenge is therefore to replace the current high value, low cost solutions that are already offered and provide storage that accounts for daily fluctuations, as well as variations over several weeks and months or seasons, in a cost and benefit-appropriate way.
It has long been recognised that more modern Energy Storage applications have a role to play in the future success and management of energy systems. This is particularly the case with pledges from a number of countries internationally (e.g. at the recent COP21 talks in Paris, December 2015) to limit the rise of global warming; resulting in commitments to further increase penetrations of renewables within the global energy mix. Alongside this increase in renewables, Energy Storage is deemed a valuable and complementary solution for storing electricity that is generated variably and intermittently, dispatching it as needed to meet demand.
The use of Energy Storage alongside renewables is not the only area where storage can potentially add value though. Energy Storage provides a complex field for analysis, with an array of possible technologies and applications, with many locational and temporal considerations. These wide-ranging applications provide storage with the potential to compete in a variety of energy markets, plus markets for energy services.
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Aims & Objectives
ERP’s work on Energy Storage (2016) will provide a system-wide overview of the current financial, legal, political, commercial and regulatory challenges for Energy Storage deployment to 2030 with a “light-touch” focus on the technical challenges.
The work will begin looking at the whole system need for Energy Storage and potentially competing technologies before moving ahead to:
- Identify system-wide barriers to Energy Storage & possible ways to overcome them
- Provide clarity for: policy-makers, regulators, network operators, customers, investors & ES developers (tech & supply chain developers) to:
- Help catalyse & mobilise an ES supply chain of value to the UK, stimulating investment.
This last aim will be achieved by enabling collaboration of the parties and actors that are key to the system-wide development and deployment of Energy Storage.
In relation to step 1, an ‘inputs and scoping’ workshop was held in April 2016 to facilitate discussion amongst attendees and representatives from across the energy system, and to gather first-hand knowledge and experience of the barriers faced. In addition to interviews with relevant contacts from the wider energy community, the workshop has helped to inform ERP’s project work and the examples or case studies referred to.
Following the above analysis, ERP’s project will highlight significant barriers identified and put forward recommendations for how energy storage applications can be enabled and utilised across the UK.
Conclusions
TBA
Follow-up activities
TBA
Steering Group
Steering Group Chair:
- Peter Bance, Origami Energy Ltd.
Steering Group Members:
- Keith MacLean (UKERC)
- Craig Edgar, Atkins
- John Tindal, SSE
- Sally Fenton, DECC
- Judith Ross, Ofgem
- Martin Southall, GE
- David Butler, Scottish Enterprise
- Stephen Marland, National Grid
- Allen Creedy / Andrew Poole, FSB
- Andrew Lever, The Carbon Trust
- Nick Heywood, Origami Energy Ltd.
Further Information
For more information about the project, please contact ERP .
Background
The amount of intermittent generation connected to the grid is expected to increase significantly over the next couple of decades. This, alongside significant changes to the generation portfolio, is likely to have significant impact on the role and operation of all generation plant. There is likely to be an increased demand for ancillary services such as reserve, response and inertia whilst traditional providers retire from the market place. The project examined the entire market for ancillary services including the need to maintain firm capacity to provide security.
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The project undertook some modelling and analysis of the GB electricity system in the light of the carbon targets set by the Committee on Climate Change. Firstly a brief examination was made of the German and Irish markets with the hope of learning from their advanced penetration of variable renewables. Secondly a new model, BERIC, was written to simultaneously balance the need for energy, reserve, inertia and firm capacity on the system and its findings compared with simpler stacking against the load duration curve. The intention was to assess the need for flexibility on the system but some broader conclusions also emerged:
Conclusions
A system with weather dependent renewables needs companion low carbon technologies to provide firm capacity. This firm capacity could be supplied by a number of technologies such as nuclear, biomass or fossil CCS.
Policy makers and system operators need to value services that ensure grid stability so new providers feel a market pull. Currently some necessary services are provided free or as a mandatory service. However traditional providers (fossil plant) are disappearing at the same time that demand is growing. New providers can’t develop in the absence of a market signal.
A holistic approach to system cost would better recognise the importance of firm low carbon technologies and the cost of balancing the system. The value to the system of a technology is dependent on the existing generation mix and the services which that technology can provide. This means that a technology cannot be characterised by a single number such as levelised cost of energy.
Recommendations
A much deeper examination of the issues raised here is needed but must employ a whole systems approach.
New zero carbon firm capacity is essential to decarbonisation but leading technologies such as nuclear and CCS require long lead times so meeting 2030 targets requires action today.
DECC and National Grid should consider how new providers of ancillary services can be given the financial comfort needed to underpin their development and deployment before traditional providers disappear.
This work supports some key recommendations from the European Commission’s Smart Grid Task Force, in particular:
- Equal access to electricity markets for all providers
- Contractual simplicity and transparency
- Standardised measurement of flexibility
- Incentives to grid operators to enable flexibility for meeting 2030 targets rather than focussing on short-term optimisation
- Improved price signals for providers of flexibility
Follow-up activities
A workshop was held in November to test these initial conclusions. Further work and modifications to the modelling will take place in response to that. Talks have also been given to the 14th Annual APGTF Workshop, the Gas to Power UK Forum 2014 and the IChemE workshop at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.
Working Group
Project Chair:
Peter Emery – Drax
Steering Group:
- Phil Lawton – National Grid
- Nick Bevan – DECC
- Nick Eraut – ETI
- Ed Sherman – BIS
- Alexandra Malone – SSE
Steering group advisor
Further Information
Please contact ERP .
Background
How energy is produced and used is expected to be transformed with the transition to a low-carbon energy system. This will have major impacts on how it is transferred from point of production to user, to ensure an economically efficient, secure and reliable supply of energy services. With supply and demand becoming increasingly variable, and potentially a shift towards greater electrification particularly at the household level, smarter systems will be need requiring new approaches and technologies to manage the networks. This is likely to affect how the transmission and distribution networks, particularly for electricity, are managed and monitored and greater demand-side controls along with smart meters.
Considerable effort has been put into understanding and coordinating the development of smart grids in the UK. However, as the technologies and understanding develops and evolves and with so many stakeholders involved, each with different interests, the definition of a smart grid can diverge. This project will review the current activity with the aim of understanding the various perspectives on smart systems, including the interaction between the gas and electricity systems and demand-side technologies. It will include understanding the perspectives of the various operators, with the aim of proposing a common language and identifying gaps in the research & development efforts.
Conclusions & Recommendations
ERP plans to publish a report from this work in early 2017.
Follow-up activities
TBC.
Steering Group
Project Chair
- Phil Sheppard, National Grid
Steering Group Members
- Duncan McCombie, Energy Savings Trust
- Damitha Adikaari, DECC
- Dave Openshaw, UK Power Networks
- Phil Proctor, Energy Technology Institute
- Nick Smailes, Technology Strategy Board
- Ron Loveland, Energy adviser to Welsh Government
- Ewen Cameron, Scottish Enterprise
- Gareth Evans, Ofgem
- Peter Jones, ABB
Further Information
Please contact Richard Heap from the ERP Analysis Team.
Battery
Background
To meet carbon emission targets, the UK’s energy system in the 2020s is likely to have high levels of intermittent generation from wind power, with increasing electrification of heat and transport. However, we need a better understanding of how intermittency can be managed to ensure an efficient transition to a low-carbon economy. A number of flexible options could provide operational flexibility on such a radically different system, including more electrical interconnection, demand side participation, energy storage and flexible thermal generation.
This project considers technical and engineering challenges to delivering flexible options, the business cases for technology deployment, and how further analysis of the energy system should incorporate a wider set of perspectives
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Conclusions and recommendations
Ensuring that £200bn is invested in the UK’s energy infrastructure over the next decade in the most effective way is an important task. Undertaking technology demonstrations and rigorous systems analysis that could help integrate generation from intermittent sources will ensure the energy system is designed efficiently, minimising the risk of stranded assets or taking inadvertent high carbon pathway at a later date. It would also show opportunities for technological development that would place the UK in a good position to capture market share elsewhere, as intermittency becomes a systems issue in other countries deploying renewables.
Technical and engineering challenges
Technological options could provide greater system flexibility, but need further development to show their potential scale and performance. Priorities for innovation are to:
- demonstrate thermal storage to manage power requirements for heat pumps;
- develop lower cost vehicle-to-grid capability in networks and vehicles;
- ensure smart meter systems are deployed which will enable demand-side participation;
- consider how to integrate interconnection of the GB electricity network with offshore wind development;
- support research, development and demonstration of energy storage technologies;
- improve the efficiency and reliability of thermal generation.
Business cases and market framework
The market and regulatory framework, as it evolves under the EMR process, should recognise the current uncertainty in how flexibility will be provided from the possible options. Key issues to address are how investment can be incentivised in:
- Thermal plant, running at low load factors.
- Vehicle-to-grid and interconnection, if they are to be deployed at significant scale.
- Demand side and energy storage technologies, in which the value proposition is currently limited.
Systems analysis
The scale and nature of the flexible options that are required will depend on the degree of intermittency and electrification of the energy system. Any further scenario or modelling analysis on this topic should assess how sensitive results are to such high levels, in particular: the penetration of electric vehicles and heat pumps on the demand side, and the deployment of wind generation on the supply side.
Some technology-specific analysis would also help improve our understanding, including:
- the role of rechargeable energy storage – how, at what scale, and where, electrical and thermal storage can deliver most benefit to the energy system under different scenarios;
- the extent to which interconnection can provide flexibility and reliability in the UK electricity network, especially in periods of widespread low-wind events.
Flexible options have been, and are being, considered independently, but their combined integration over the next 10 – 15 years within a dynamic energy system is a critical area in which understanding needs to be improved. Analysis should go beyond single point optimisation of the power sector and consider how other technology choices in buildings and transport could contribute to overall system flexibility.
Recent developments, Aug 2012
DECC published ‘The Electricity System: assessment of future challenges’ on 9 August 2012. The paper assesses the possible impacts of the move to a low carbon economy on the electricity system as a whole. It considers the challenges to balancing supply and demand, and looks at whether there are more cost effective ways to operate the system in the future.
Three pieces of analytical work were also undertaken to support the development of the Electricity System paper, covering:
- Understanding the Balancing Challenge (by Imperial College and NERA Consulting)
- Demand Side Response in the domestic sector: a literature review of major trials (by Frontier Economics and Sustainability First)
- Electricity System Analysis: future system benefits from selected DSR scenarios (by Redpoint Energy and Element Energy)
Full details here
Background
A project by the Energy Research Partnership has been looking at the role for energy storage in the UK’s future energy system. The report, published in June 2011 presents a strategic view of the opportunities for electrical and thermal storage to provide a reliable energy supply, setting-out the nature and scale of the challenges that will be faced. We describe how energy storage could go to meeting those challenges and the innovation landscape for further technology development in the UK.
Executive Summary is available here, and the full report can be downloaded here.
Developments, including funding opportunities and analysis of the role of energy storage in the UK, which have followed the report’s publication, will be noted here.
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Conclusions
Our key conclusions are:
- Energy storage can help manage the large-scale deployment of intermittent generation and the electrification of space heating.
The role for energy storage is poorly described in many pathways to a low-carbon economy. It needs detailed analysis to identify the potential economic and environmental benefits.
- New energy storage technologies are unlikely to be deployed on a large scale under current market and regulatory conditions. Both technology cost reductions, and a market framework which recognises the benefits of energy storage, are required.
- Demonstration of energy storage technologies needs to be scaled-up and public sector support for innovation in these technologies should be better coordinated.
- Energy storage is an enabling technology; its potential role will be defined by developments across the energy system. A better understanding of both the energy system and policy direction is required urgently to inform investment decisions.
Recommendations
Our recommendations are:
- Government should set out its long-term policy direction for energy in the UK to help define the potential role for storage, and the innovation required to meet that role.
- Funders of energy innovation must set out a strategy for the analysis and innovation of energy storage technologies, coordinating their support and integrating the analysis of potential benefits with technology innovation.
- Further analysis of the potential role of storage in the UK’s energy system should be funded. Whole system and subsystem modelling, incorporating the full range of energy storage options across time and energy scales, is needed.
- The Technology Strategy Board should consider bringing forward a programme for energy storage technologies, where there is an opportunity for UK businesses and a potential market need. Other bodies which can support large scale demonstration activities, such as Ofgem and DECC, should target energy storage as a priority.
- Electricity Market Reform and regulatory approaches must recognise the potential benefits of increased energy storage explicitly.
- The energy storage stakeholder community, covering all elements of research, development, demonstration and deployment, should establish a Strategic Roadmap for Energy Storage in the UK to introduce a coherent approach across the sector.
This report has been prepared by the ERP Analysis Team, led by Jonathan Radcliffe, with input from ERP members and their organisations. The Steering Group was chaired by John Miles (Arup), with Ron Loveland (Welsh Assembly Government), Alex Hart (Ceres Power), Charles Carey (SSE), David Anelli (E.ON), Gary Staunton (Carbon Trust), Gert Jan Kramer (Shell), John Loughhead (UKERC), Richard Ploszek (RAEng), Bob Sorrell (BP), Steven Stocks (Scottish Enterprise), and Tim Bradley (National Grid).
The views are not the official point of view of any of these organisations or individuals and do not constitute government policy.
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Project Aims and Objectives
This piece of work aims to provide an overarching insight into the Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) challenges for technologies related to electricity infrastructure. It identifies the innovation challenges that face a range of power infrastructure related technologies, sets out the state-of-the-art in addressing these challenges and the organisational landscape (both funding and RD&D) active in the area. The work then identifies critical gaps in innovation activities and makes recommendations for investors and Government to address these gaps.
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Technology context: Electricity Infrastructure
The renewable (and low-carbon) technology deployment and changes in patterns of demand side activity required to reach the 80% reductions in CO2 by 2050 will precipitate an equivalent change in the electricity infrastructure to support this emerging system. The UK power infrastructure (both transmission and distribution) needs to be fit for purpose and ready to meet the needs of a dramatically different power landscape. This report provides an appraisal of the technical issues facing the evolving network to meet the overarching challenges of maintaining system security and reliability in a low carbon environment.
Project overview
- Overview of technical challenges and the organisational landscape
- Identification of key RD&D activities in the UK and Europe:
- RD&D Gap analysis to highlight 4 areas where further attention may be required:
- Energy Storage
- High Voltage DC Networks
- Smart grids, scope and integration
- Whole system evaluation
- ERP recommendations and priorities for action
Project Working Group Members
National Grid, E.ON, Technology Strategy Board, Energy Technologies Institute, Carbon Trust, Royal Academy of Engineering, ERP Analysis Team
Project Outputs and Final Report
The report was publiched in November 2009:
Final report can be found here
Link to minutes of June 2009 plenary discussion on draft final report
ERP – ETI – RAEng workshop on Heat: 22 January 2009
The Energy Research Partnership, Energy Technologies Institute and Royal Academy of Engineering organised a workshop to examine the role of heat in the UK’s energy system.
Heat accounts for about half of the UK’s current CO2 emissions and was the subject of a consultation by Government. The workshop was designed to raise the level of thinking on heat as an issue, help guide ETI’s future work on heat, and inform participants’ responses to the consultation.
Context setting presentations covered whole systems, policy, and technology angles; followed by an interactive panel discussion with senior figures from private and public sectors.
Click here for the final report of the workshop.
The agenda and presentations are available below.
Whole systems
Policy
Technology
Based on the workshop, ERP submitted a response to DECC’s Heat and Energy Saving Strategy Consultation on 8 May 2009.
