A report by RenewableUK has shown that building energy storage projects next to wind farms reduces electricity system costs and boosts energy security.
Titled Making the most of renewables: the role of onshore co-location in accelerating an integrated energy system, the report also establishes that those storage projects provide flexibility in the clean energy system, ensuring electricity demand is always met.
As defined by the report, co-location is the process of developing multiple generation projects (including energy storage) or combining different technology types at the same grid connection point (like onshore wind with solar, battery storage or green hydrogen).
Battery storage is currently the technology driving co-location. The report sets out a case for reforming the planning system and introducing financial support mechanisms to encourage co-location at sites where clean electricity is generated across the UK.
Yonna Vitanova, RewnewableUK’s senior policy analyst and the report author, said: “The value of storage in our modern energy system is under-appreciated and under-valued. This has to change if we are to make the most of innovation clean technology, drive people’s electricity bills down and increase Britain’s energy security.”
The benefits outweigh (and cut) the cost
According to National Grid statistics, the queue of all energy projects awaiting connection has reached over 700GW, of which 97GW are battery storage projects. RenewableUK’s EnergyPulse database shows that only 12% of wind and solar farms throughout the UK are co-located with batteries or hydrogen electrolysers.
The report concedes that co-location is a more complex process compared to standalone sites; the potential benefits, as laid out below, ought to make this worth it.
Access to the grid has become more competitive, and connection queues are getting longer – maximising the utility of a project’s grid connection is increasingly important.
Standalone storage assets currently face a delay to connect to the grid beyond 2030, while co-locating to an existing site minimises the need for more costly grid capacity which leads to reduced infrastructure investment costs.
Sharing and reutilising infrastructure reduces capital and operational costs. Combining assets at a single location can create value-added systems. Integrated wind and solar sites yield more stable and manageable power output.
With national planning policy requirements in England as a barrier to new onshore renewable generation, extending and/or repowering projects to make use of land available and public acceptance already nurtured in that location is an opportunity to bring more onshore wind online.
Combining multiple assets behind a single connection point also provides an opportunity to load shift generation output or avoid grid curtailment, particularly in cases when energy can be moved from generation directly to storage.
The report claims that the reason for the UK’s small percentage of co-location is that policy and regulation are hindering the growth of such projects.
Vitanova added: “Renewable energy developers should be able to include co-location in their business plans more easily, with a clearer rules and regulations being put in place to unleash the benefits which co-located projects can provide to the system.
“Building a more flexible system by tackling the current barriers to co-location will require a coordinated effort and a holistic strategy cutting across markets, grid, planning and technical barriers, as this report shows. Although this is challenging, it will ultimately benefit billpayers in the long term by cutting electricity system costs.”
