UK Energy Storage Must Be Incentivised

New Parliamentary Committee Reports That The UK Needs to Incentivise Energy Storage

The UK Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee has requested the nation’s government to provide an incentive for innovative energy storage, and demand side response (DSR) technologies.

An incredible opportunity exists for the UK, to become a world leader in disruptive technologies, a member of the Committee said. Yet the current energy security subsidies we have, favour vile diesel generation over smarter clean tech solutions, Angus MacNeil MP concluded.

In the Committee’s final report on the subject, it goes into detail about how energy storage would help secure electricity supplies. Suggesting it will provide a degree of stability to the nation’s power market and help rein in wholesale electricity prices.

This report also recommends that the Government move quickly to address regulatory barriers faced by electric storage facilities and that the committee makes a public commitment to making the UK a world-leader in this regard.

The major barriers are perceived as being the owner of a storage asset and the lack of clear regulatory and legislative governing framework.

A savings of £7bn per annum for each consumer could be achieved if these electric storage barriers were removed, Mr. MacNeil reported.

There has also been a call to end double-charging. This practice charges storage facilities for consuming the electricity they store before it is supplied to the macro grid where the final consumer of the generated electricity is charged.

The Committee also states that the Government should consider a possible subsidy framework for energy storage, in order to accelerate deployment, citing the importance of electricity storage and its full renewable energy potential.

The capacity market rules and regulations in regards to storage need to be reviewed, the report suggests. This suggestion includes the idea of increasing the contract length and dealing with restrictions relating to the stacking of revenues for storage projects.

If you would like to read The Energy Revolution and Future Challenges for UK Energy and Climate Change Policy, it may be viewed here.

Energy storage installed capacity in the UK stood at 24MW at the beginning of this year, according to Eunomia, an independent consultancy firm. The company reports that most of this energy was used during demonstration energy management projects. Eunomia forecasts that under the current policy settings, the total installed capacity will exceed 1.6 GW in 2020; however, a large portion of it will be used behind-the-meter.