Kevin Scott
SMART technology which makes the electricity grid more efficient as
renewable energy production increases will be “truly massive” for Scotland,
according to its founders.
The Faraday Grid, unveiled last night at the National Museum of Scotland in
Edinburgh, could save UK consumers more than £1 billion per year and turn
its developer into a multi-billion-pound business.
The company was founded in Australia before its founders relocated to
Edinburgh because they believed Scotland’s heritage in engineering and
availability of PhD students was more advantageous to the development of
the technology.
Led by chief executive Andrew Scobie, the company aims to modernise the
grid by replacing technology developed more than a century ago with a
network of devices called Faraday Exchangers. These exchangers are able to
handle greater variations in the power supply caused by renewable energy
production, Faraday said this will improve the grid’s stability, balance
supply and demand, and reduce the cost of energy.
“What you’ve had for the last 132 years is a transformer which gives the
system efficiency, but is inflexible,” said Mr Scobie. “As variable
renewable energy goes through the grid and demand itself is no longer able
to cope. Grids are crashing more often because of the increasingly dynamic
nature of supply and demand.”
Mr Scobie said the increase in renewable energy to reach government targets
will put such pressure on the grid, that without new technology service and
maintenance costs will rocket.
“If you go down the current path you’re going to see energy costs probably
treble by 2030, because of the extra cost to make the system work.”
The firm has engineered the Faraday Exchange, a control device which
maintains target voltage, frequency and power, efficiently over a range of
operations. “With more renewables into the system managing those things
becomes literally exponentially more difficult,” said Mr Scobie.
When the product becomes commercially viable, it will be in a position to
replace 867,000 transformers currently scheduled to be changed in the next
20 years.
Worth around £7,500 each, this could generate revenue of £6.5 billion by
2040, and save 54 million tonnes of carbon. This is equivalent to the
carbon emissions of about nine million people.
And the company believes the technology can be rolled out globally.
In August, Faraday Grid received investment from US-based AMP, a global
developer of flexible clean energy. AMP, as principal strategic investor,
will incorporate the Faraday Grid into its global portfolio of microgrid
energy solutions and clean energy generation assets.
“We have investors who are major global energy companies,” said Mr Scobie.
“We also have a partnership in technology development with Scottish Power
and UK Power Network [and we are] working with them to take the product
across the UK. We’re rolling out those programmes internationally.”
While the US launch is scheduled for 2018, the UK will likely be 2019 or
2020 because of compliance and certification processes.
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