Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

I think this can fairly be classed as big news.

National Power is talking about investing in, and developing12.5GW / 100GWh of BESS. I've no idea how much of this will actually happen, but I find it fascinating how quickly the numbers being touted, are moving upwards in scale. Remember the 'Big Battery' in Australia, the Hornsdale Energy Reserve? That made news all over the World, and was originally 100MW/129MWh.

A number often touted for UK intraday balancing of RE peaks and troughs, from SDES (short duration energy storage) is 500GWh. [Note - this isn't medium to long duration energy storage for coping with low RE generation periods.]

NatPower plots 12.5GW UK battery drive

NatPower UK plans to invest more than £10bn into delivering a large-scale portfolio of battery energy storage and grid projects across the country.

The company said it is developing 13 battery assets totalling 12.5GW, 10 of which are under assessment for regulator Ofgem’s Long Duration Energy Storage Cap & Floor Window 1 process.

The article mentions the Teeside Gigapark, and here's a link to more detail on that specific project:

NatPower to Build UK’s Largest Battery Storage Project on Sembcorp Utilities’ Wilton International Site

NatPower UK has secured an agreement with Sembcorp Utilities (UK) Limited, for a 32-acre site at Wilton International in Redcar to deliver a 1GW / 8GWh lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

michaels

Where does the 500GwH come from?  Sounds much too high for me for balancing within the day.

Do we know the economics of battery storage?  Presumably the 'first few' GWh can be extremely profitable in meeting unmet peak demand but as more and more gets rolled out the profitability for all diminishes?

silverwhistle

michaels said:

Do we know the economics of battery storage?

This is indeed an issue. The Coire Glas 30GWh scheme is currently stalled as SSE don't want to commit any more funds until the payback issues are settled.

The following are public domain meeting minutes from June 24th  which may help to explain:

Last week Ofgem issued another consultation document on the financial parameters of how the
Cap & Floor is going to work. The CG team is disappointed that the level is pitched very low level
for Cap & Floor. The ‘Floor’ exists to de-risk the investment for developers because of
uncertainties around construction cost and revenues.

PSH is not like a wind farm or normal hydro scheme that is generating energy. CG is a storage
scheme, and as such uses more energy than it generates. Returns rely on market conditions and
government policy changes in the future. Future revenue for next 40 years or longer is extremely
hard to predict. Developers need a floor for security, and Cap is to protect customers from
developers making huge profits if revenues turn out to be a lot better than anticipated.

The document has set the project return rate far too low. It may suit projects like batteries as
these are much quicker to develop and build. They are also easier for banks to finance and
support.

At the moment, if we took everything that is in the consultation document, SSE’s view is that
projects like Coire Glas are uninvestable. We will be responding to the consultation by 17 July and
continue lobbying. SSE is exploring all options, but as Project Director it is very difficult for MS to
get the SSE Board to spend more money on this project until these issues are resolved.

There is more to it and if you are interested this link may help:

https://www.coireglas.com/s/Minutes-20250624-Coire-Glas-CLG.pdf

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Where does the 500GwH come from?  Sounds much too high for me for balancing within the day.

Do we know the economics of battery storage?  Presumably the 'first few' GWh can be extremely profitable in meeting unmet peak demand but as more and more gets rolled out the profitability for all diminishes?

You will have to think back about a decade to the many discussions on MSE, particularly regarding the need for nuclear power instead of high RE deployment.

I too think 500GWh sounds a bit too high, but it's a good test, since it was used almost as a way to 'prove' that nuclear was needed. You may recall that nuclear advocates on here (and other forums) often referred to Euan Mearns of Energy Matters. His papers suggested, that without nuclear, on extremely cold days when leccy demand may exceed 120GW, then ~500GWh of intraday storage would be needed, v's only 10's of GWh's for nuclear.

UK Electricity 2050 Part 4: Nuclear and renewables cost comparisons

Unfortunately for Mr Mearns, his 500GWh figure which IMO was mainly used by nuclear advocates to show that very large nuclear capacity was unavoidable, was unluckily timed to coincide with the massive growth in BEV's.

This had two unfortunate side effects for the 'nuclear is essential' argument, as it led to a rapidly falling cost of battery storage, thanks to the very high learning curve for storage (Wright's Law), and opened the door to the possibility of V2G. So that extreme 500GWh of intraday storage figure suddenly became entirely possible.

I also suspect that the large growth in interconnectors to the European mainland, will help significantly with intraday balancing, as well as balancing over days to a week or two, when considering maximum figures for storage at all levels.


Don't take this too seriously, I'm only pondering out loud, but I can now see a future scenario where even domestic demand level storage reaches 100GWh. Especially if we include potential DNO storage deployments at small local sub stations, or distributed through households. 10m homes with 10kWh of storage each (on average) would be 100GWh.

It adds up fast.

debitcardmayhem

Largest UK solar farm gets approval https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kp40ky8j4o

debitcardmayhem

Oh an Miliband and others speaking here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgzn1vx701o

Effician

debitcardmayhem said:

Largest UK solar farm gets approval https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kp40ky8j4o

All a bit too " Big yellow taxi " for me.