Power trip By Gareth Davies

Why should the most northerly parts of Scotland with the most potential for
renewable energy pay up to 10 times more to connect to the national grid
than southern England?

The islands off the north and west of Scotland hold the UK’s best renewable
resources, yet for more than a decade energy policies have prevented them
from realising their full potential.

Due to long out-of-date doctrines from a previous era still in place today,
those generating energy in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles are
charged about five times as much per unit for access to the national grid
as those generating power elsewhere in northern Scotland.

The difference is even more pronounced when compared to southern England,
where generators can even get paid for using the transmission system £10/kW
rather than pay draconian charges of more than £100/kW.

This uneven charging mechanism, levying progressively higher charges with
distance from London, was introduced to ensure sufficient power near the UK
capital and the south-east. But today this anti-competitive, perverse
mechanism has stifled investment in wind, wave and tidal renewable power in
exactly the place where Britain has most of it.

The UK Government has been under intense pressure to change the status quo
for more than a decade. This pressure has been led by the islanders
themselves, who know better than anyone the harm to economic development
arising from the charging scheme. In their support are the regional
enterprise organisation Highlands and Islands Enterprise, industry groups
such as Scottish Renewables and the Scottish Government itself.

And it seems their efforts may pay off. There is talk of an island
generation tariff to reimburse energy generators on the islands for the
excessive charges they pay. A solution of sorts, but it would leave the
widely discredited charging scheme in place.

This is important not just to the islands but to the UK as a whole. The
amount of clean energy the three island groups are capable of producing
would have profound effects on the country’s electricity sector.

Top quality wind and waves

At the turn of the 21st century, each of the island groups assessed their
energy-generation potential, taking into account planning, cost and
infrastructure issues. The results showed that together the islands have
the potential for 15GW of wind, wave and tidal power – more than all of
Britain’s nuclear power stations combined.

With an average wind turbine producing about 1MW, this would require 15,000
turbines, covering the islands like a forest. Instead, different technology
would be used to suit the area. Wind and wave power would dominate the
Western Isles exposed to the Atlantic, for example, while in Orkney
renewable generation would take advantage of the strong tides.

What’s significant is this island energy’s reliability and availability
compared to renewables elsewhere. One of the most quoted problems
detractors find in renewable energy is its variability – there is no solar
power at night and turbines won’t turn on a windless day. This fails to
take into account the fact that our energy use is extremely variable, and
that our fossil-fuel and non-renewable system has been designed with 100%
redundancy. Power stations need maintenance, or suddenly break down, and
often are not at all good at coping with sudden power surges – just when
they are needed most.

Regardless, it is clear that renewable energy from the islands will be
available in larger quantities and for more of the time than renewable
energy from elsewhere in the UK.

Winds blow so strongly and constantly that capacity factors (a measure of
turbine efficiency) between 40% and 55% are possible onshore, with offshore
sites likely to be even more productive. Compare this to sites in southern
England and the Midlands that sometimes fail to reach even 20%.

Similarly, levels of wave energy around the islands’ more exposed coasts
should be twice as energetic as around Cornwall, for instance. The Scottish
tides also have special qualities. While the window of opportunity to
generate power with the daily tides will be the same as further south, the
strength of tides in a small area – especially around Orkney – and the
number of suitable locations for equipment mean tidal output in general
will be greater than elsewhere.

An added bonus is that when these three forms of energy join forces in one
area, they provide their own redundancy and increase reliability. Any
remaining dips in energy generation could be managed through additional
near-generation storage (for example, large batteries, pump storage, heat
stores) and customer based storage/demand management mechanisms (for
example, smart electricity supply, large immersion heaters, household
batteries).

Grid access: paying to provide

NONE of this means a thing unless the question of connecting the islands to
the national grid is addressed. Orkney and the Western Isles have small
connections that desperately need upgrading to cope with existing demand,
let alone for a future where large amounts of electricity flow the other
way. Despite the problems that have curtailed major investments,
small-scale projects have grown. Orkney’s electricity, for example, is
generated almost entirely from renewables. Shetland is not connected,
though that may come with the Viking wind farm project under way on the isles.

One might expect planning and executing these details to be a strategic
decision of government. In fact, the current system for triggering the
building of transmission-scale grid connections relies on a generator of
suitable scale making an application. This is itself costly, and leaves the
generator liable for an escalating set of costs. Small wonder that,
together with the prospect of paying five times the grid access charge paid
by generators in the south, no firm has stepped forward.

The energy dividend and the way forward

Why is this so important to the islands themselves? Economic development –
jobs and wealth. Any island community is well aware of its assets and its
limitations, and when a new opportunity knocks there is a strong incentive
to make the most of it. Look at the case of Orkney. Here, the 17 inhabited
islands of the archipelago have been at the vanguard of the renewables
revolution for decades. Here you’ll find early 1980s prototype wind
turbines, a 3MW turbine that was the world’s largest until the late 1990s,
the world’s first wave and tidal technology test centre, and now more than
70MW of onshore wind generation mostly owned by local communities.
Renewables support more than 300 jobs, a flourishing university campus, and
successful global business activity with an annual income of about £20 million.

All this from an awful lot of hard work from a lot of people, and more than
£400m invested into renewables in Orkney over the last 13 years. More
remarkably still, more than £100m of that has come from the local community
itself.

If the UK Government provides the right incentives and levels the playing
field so that energy from areas further from the south-east of England can
compete, the country could benefit from up to 15GW of the best renewable
energy available, and the islands will benefit from rare economic
opportunities. Rather than waiting for it to happen, the people of these
communities have been at the forefront of driving for change and investing
in their own future. Were policy-makers to show the same zeal, the UK
electricity market would be cleaner, greener and probably cheaper.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gareth Davies owns an environmental consultancy company and a marine
operations management company, both based in Orkney, as well as being
Managing Director of ICIT. He is also a voluntary board member of the
Orkney Renewable Energy Forum and has previously served as a voluntary
board member for Scottish Renewables.

This article was originally published on theconversation.com