Former Australian Prime Minister and current president of the International Hydropower Association (IHA) Malcolm Turnbull has penned an open letter to Rishi Sunak calling on the rapid deployment of the cap and floor mechanism for long-duration energy storage (LDES).
Disclosed in the letter, Turnbull outlines that the UK has “almost 7GW of shovel-ready pumped storage hydropower projects with over 135GWh storage capacity” ready to contribute to the decarbonisation of the UK in addition to bolstering energy security.
Should these all be built, this would increase the UK’s energy storage capacity five-fold.
Referring to the recent LDES government consultation, the letter outlines that this is a welcome development and will support the development of a policy mechanism to enable the rapid deployment of LDES technologies such as PSH.
Technologies such as PSH will be critical to the UK’s net zero transition. With the rapid deployment of variable and intermittent generation technologies such as solar and wind in the UK, energy storage technologies are required to ensure the security of supply, particularly on days when there is low generation.
Gas peaker plants have traditionally been utilised to ensure the security of supply in the UK but these plants are incompatible with net zero and must be substituted for zero-carbon technologies. PSH and battery technologies could facilitate this.
Case study: South Australia
Within the open letter, Turnbull outlined an issue in South Australia during his time as Prime Minister. In 2016, there was a state-wide electricity blackout where renewables (mostly wind) had expanded rapidly with “little thought being given to firming”.
As a result, the Australian government put storage and pumped hydro on the agenda and commenced work on the largest pumped storage project in the world, Snowy Hydro 2.0, which has a capacity of 2.2GW and 350GWh of storage.
Since then, Turnbull stated in his letter, pumped storage has played a vital role in Australia’s energy transition. Queensland, for example, is developing two massive, pumped storage projects almost as big as Snowy 2.0.
Recommendations to the UK government
The open letter includes several recommendations the government could incorporate to support LDES technologies.
The first suggests that the government must deliver the LDES scheme quickly so that the first application window opens by early 2025 and is focused on mature projects. Doing so will get the shovel-ready projects running to boost investor confidence in the sector.
Other recommendations include guaranteeing additional application windows will be held, introducing soft targets for LDES to instil investor confidence and considering long-term contract visibility. Alongside comprehensive reform of the electricity market, including the Capacity Market, this will ensure better remuneration for grid services.
