“When we look at the forecast from now to 2050, we’re looking at a doubling of electrical demand from a few hundred-terawatt hours to over 600TWh,” said Barry Hurst, head of business development at Enel X.
Electrical demand in the future will soar as the UK turns to electrified solutions in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint. One of the biggest causes for the increase in electrical demand includes the transition to EVs.
“The largest part of the demand increase is going to come from road surface transport, such as EVs, and that causes enormous amounts of flexibility in the market,” Hurst stated on the latest Current± briefings.
“It’s crucial to understand what mechanisms are going to come out to support that and then provide our clients with the right services. They can be in the right market at the right time to maximise their revenues. That’s the biggest challenge we see.”
Findings from project DINO in October indicated that local energy networks could see peak electrical loads increase by 80% by 2040 due to heat pumps, EVs and domestic batteries.
Due to the increasing emphasis on promoting renewable technologies such as EVs and batteries, the research indicated by 2035, local networks could approach available capacity.
With this increasing demand, flexible services are crucial in ensuring stability is maintained on the UK energy grid. In a bid to develop solutions to solve this crucial issue, National Grid ESO is trialling a demand flexibility service.
The initiative was set out in the ESO’s Winter Outlook report in October, when the operator stated that while there is a risk of blackouts, it is “cautiously confident” that it had the tools to manage the predicted constraints.
The demand flexibility service, which will run from 3 November to 31 March 2023, will have a guaranteed acceptance price of £3,000/MWh (£3/KWh) for providers of flexibility.
Enel X made reference to local flexibility services as part of its portfolio. In this regard, Mike Garland, head of flexible energy solutions at Enel X expressed that although the firm does explore this as part of its service offerings, it is very much “dependent on being in the vicinity”.
“It [local flexible services] is a service we follow however it is hugely location dependent. The customer has to be in the vicinity of where the requirements for the day of service are.
“We absolutely follow the auctions and look for opportunities for our clients, but the amount of participation is pretty low in those services. We see more opportunity in other services before we get to that.”
In relation to local flexible services, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution announced earlier this year a tender for 70MW of flexibility capacity due to an anticipated risk of a local network becoming overloaded in central southern England.
In doing so, the network operator was seeking contracts in 16 zones with a total value estimated at £6.7 million.
You can watch the Current± Briefings: Energy revenue opportunities for UK businesses post-Triads webinar with Enel X below: