Energy customers will keep paying millions of pounds a year to wind farm
operators to turn their machines off unless the UK urgently invests in
developing energy storage, according to a new report released today.
Media reports in the past week have again raised public concerns about
the millions of pounds that are being spent in constraint payments from
National Grid to wind farm operators – effectively paying them to turn off
their generators as the electricity is deemed to be ‘wrong time’.
And today the Institution of Mechanical Engineers warns that consumers will
continue to foot ever increasing bills for these payments unless the
Government works with energy companies and industry to develop a clear road
map for the development, demonstration and deployment of energy storage
technologies in the UK.
Under existing market arrangements, if an energy company generating
electricity is unable to supply its power to the grid because it is not
required it is entitled to constraint payments.
In its new report <http://www.imeche.org/energystorage>Energy Storage: The
missing link in the UK’s energy commitments, the Institution highlights
energy storage technologies such as those based on Cryogenics – also known
as ‘liquid air’ – flywheels, pumped heat and graphene super-capacitors as
potential ways the UK can start making the best use of its renewable energy.
Dr Tim Fox, Head of Energy and Environment at the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, said:
“We know that energy bills are going to rise in future, but unless we
invest in energy storage technology these constraint payments are set to
become an unnecessary additional cost for the consumer.
“The issue of constraint payments has become a recurring concern of
consumers, as they are effectively funding the non supply of electricity
from a range of generation technologies, and the fact that millions are
currently handed out to wind farms has highlighted a potential challenge
for the future.
“At the moment constraint payments for renewable based electricity
generation makes up a relatively small proportion of the total, but as the
installed capacity of these technologies increases in the future the issue
of such payments will likely become of growing public concern. Virtually
any form of energy storage could help alleviate this problem, by allowing
surplus generation from intermittent renewable sources to be stored by
power providers until needed for use at a different time when demand exists.
“But the need is not just for electricity generation, which only makes up
around 26% of UK energy demand, we also require storage for the bigger
demands for heat and transport as they transition to renewable sources.
“The intermittency challenge of renewable sources arises from the fact that
the wind does not always blow, the sun does not always shine and the waves
are not always in motion at times when consumers demand electricity.
Equally, the converse is also true, in that consumer demand for power can
be low when renewable energy sources are highly active.”
On just one day in August 2013, £1.84m was paid to operators of 28
wind-farms in Scotland to turn off their turbines and not generate
electricity.
Between 2011 and 2012, constraint payments from National Grid to wind farm
operators totalled more than £34 million. This represented just over 10% of
the total paid to all electricity generators in UK, despite wind power
accounting for less than 5% of our energy production.
In the same period, more than £340 million was paid in constraint payments
to all UK electricity generators – approximately £13 for every household.
This issue – dubbed ‘wrong time’ electricity generation – leads to
technical challenges in balancing the UK’s energy needs.
The UK is committed to meet 15% of its overall energy demand from renewable
sources by 2020, and faces a legally binding target to reduce GHG emissions
by 80% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. In Scotland, the devolved
administration has set itself the additional target to deliver the
equivalent of 100% of the country’s gross electricity consumption from
renewable-sourced generation by 2020.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers encourages adoption of the
following recommendations:
* Government needs to focus on heat and transport, as well as
electricity. It is well understood that security of supply is crucial and
that decarbonisation of the UK energy system desirable, but in contrast to
past thinking it should not be confined to simply having sufficient
electricity generating capacity to ‘keep the lights on’.
* Government must recognise that energy storage cannot be incentivised
by conventional market mechanisms. It is unlikely that the nation’s
long-term decarbonisation objectives will be met without significant
deployment of energy storage capability, yet there are no firm plans in the
UK that commit to significant levels of energy storage.
* The UK must reject its obsession with ‘cheapness’ in the energy
sector. Despite current concern over rapidly increasing energy costs, and
the reactive political promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled, it is
evident that whatever form of energy is used in the UK, costs will have to
continue to rise into the future
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