The bottleneck of renewable power integration is becoming more serious, and the UK has announced plans for a large-scale grid upgrade.
The UK Grid Power System Operator, a subsidiary of National Grid Corporation of the United Kingdom, has proposed a £58 billion grid upgrade plan to improve grid operations to better incorporate clean electricity. In recent years, the UK's existing grid capacity has gradually become full, and the UK's serious underinvestment in the transmission system over the past decade has led to a serious bottleneck in the integration of renewable electricity into the grid.
The power grid is overwhelmed
It is understood that most of the electricity network operated by the National Grid Corporation of the United Kingdom has been more of a connection point for a smaller number of larger power plants. However, with the development of renewable energy, more and more small-scale green power generation projects are emerging to meet the electricity needs of homes and businesses, each requiring new grid system connection points, and the existing grid infrastructure is increasingly under pressure. In addition, the UK grid is already overwhelmed to transport offshore power from the north-east coast of the UK to the south-loaded regions.
With electricity demand in the UK expected to grow by 64% by 2035, the UK's grid power system operator pointed out in the report that a major upgrade to the grid is needed as soon as possible, including new infrastructure and connections to offshore wind and onshore facilities.
According to the plan, the UK will need to invest in about 4,000 miles of submarine cables and 1,000 miles of onshore power lines, including a new high-capacity power line that runs from northeast Scotland to the north west of England, to increase the transmission capacity of low-cost clean electricity and improve grid stability.
It is reported that laying more submarine cables will be the first priority of the UK's grid upgrade, which is expected to be more than three times the number of onshore lines, aiming to connect offshore power production facilities to land, a move that is expected to bring 21 GW of offshore wind power into the grid. By 2035, the UK will have 86 GW of potential offshore wind capacity that can be connected to the onshore power system.
Energy storage systems are underutilized
At the same time, the UK grid has been repeatedly criticized for underutilizing battery energy storage systems. Ben Geist, head of the new energy department at Gresham House, the UK's largest battery energy storage company, said that the grid has limited the large-scale application of battery energy storage systems, resulting in battery energy storage systems not being able to participate in balancing the UK grid and not replacing natural gas power generation to the greatest extent.
The Financial Times reported that the UK grid balance dispatch mechanism has a very low utilization rate of battery energy storage systems, and battery energy storage operators have expressed concerns and doubts about the power services provided by battery energy storage systems in the UK grid balance dispatch mechanism.
In a letter to National Grid, the UK's Electric Storage Network said that between November 2022 and May 2023, the average "skip rate" of the UK's grid balance dispatch mechanism for large-scale battery energy storage systems was as high as 80%.
It is understood that the UK grid balance dispatching mechanism aims to achieve the effective operation of the power system by changing the grid operation rules and dispatching procedures, the mechanism balances the supply and demand of electricity during the trading session every half hour every day, and if the quotation of a generation asset is replaced by a higher quotation, the asset is "skipped". A survey by Modo Energy, a UK-based battery storage analytics platform, found that the "skip rate" of electric energy storage systems was as high as 91% in July 2023, and the "skip" was always due to the choice to use larger, more costly carbon-intensive energy assets, such as natural gas power generation.
Industry insiders have called for the above move to make the grid connection time of new battery energy storage system projects extremely long, and the commissioning speed is slower than expected. Based on this, grid reform must be initiated as soon as possible to pave the way for greater adoption of battery energy storage systems.
Plans for the upgrade remain uncertain
In May last year, National Grid proposed an emergency overhaul of the grid, setting out five priorities to ensure the grid can fully function on the journey to net zero. They are developing a clean energy-centric reform plan, establishing a regulatory and governance framework with energy transition as its responsibility, changing the way clean energy is connected to the grid, putting communities and consumers first, and strengthening the UK's clean energy supply chain capacity.
John Pettigrew, chief executive of National Grid, said: "We are at a critical juncture where the energy transition over the next 10 years is likely to be unprecedented, and we need to make massive investments [in the grid] as soon as possible. ”
Up to now, the load problem of the British power grid has not been fundamentally alleviated, and it is still facing the challenge of "wind-solar" power grid connection. The Guardian noted that there are more than 200 renewable energy projects waiting to be connected to the grid by 2026, but only half have been approved and the exact timing of access is still to be determined.
It is worth noting that the £58 billion grid upgrade plan still needs to be approved by the UK government and relevant regulators, and if approved, it will be the first large-scale upgrade in the UK since the establishment of the high-voltage transmission grid in the 50s of the last century. However, the lack of funding and the fact that the high level of investment will eventually be passed on to consumers has increased the uncertainty of the implementation of the plan. The UK Grid Electricity System Operator expects the grid upgrade plan, if formally implemented, to raise the annual energy bills of UK households by at least £20 to £30.
Original title: The United Kingdom announced a large-scale upgrade plan for the power grid
Text丨Reporter Wang Lin
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Editor-in-charge丨Li Huiying