National Grid

Plans to connect around 10 GW of battery energy storage projects in England and Wales are now in the fast lane. This comes on top of 10 GW of capacity unlocked at distribution level, including shovel-ready solar farms, onshore wind, and battery storage projects.

With metropolitan-borough and city councils in England and Wales already driving decarbonization initiatives, local government bodies could do so much more if given adequate powers and funding.

The project, planned at a council-owned commercial development, is expected to be connected to 2 MW of storage.

An Anglo-German report has suggested the environmentally-friendly desire to use only clean power to produce hydrogen, outlined by nations such as Germany, could end up being more emissions-heavy than the more pragmatic embrace of blue hydrogen under consideration in the U.K.

Electricity system operator National Grid is planning for a fully decarbonized power network in five years. Following a power outage last year, the operator has taken a pioneering role in finding solutions to the issues of running a grid using only power-electronics-interfaced resources. One key aspect of grid stability, inertia, can be detected using an ultracapacitor.

A trial run of a network of 5G-linked substation computers could free up 1.4 GW of grid capacity if rolled out across the U.K., according to the regional utility.

The £12.7 million project will explore how to transport pure and blended hydrogen for use in heating and industrial purposes. Construction will start next year.

UK Power Networks’ ‘Power Potential’ project offers small scale generators the chance to be rewarded for voltage-balancing reactive-power services alongside traditional power stations.

The effect the coronavirus pandemic is having on energy systems and environmental policy in Europe was discussed at a recent machine learning and climate change workshop, along with the help artificial intelligence can offer to those planning electricity access in Africa.

The International Renewable Energy Agency has devised a valuation framework to lay the foundations for successful storage deployment. As the technology matures and moves toward a projected fall in price, revenue stacking will be crucial to assess viability and properly value its benefits.