“If we are going to decarbonise, we need solutions that tackle problems for both the developer and the consumer,” Dan Nicholls, managing director at SNRG said in a webinar yesterday morning (2 February).
Grid connectivity and constraints have become a serious cause of concern for the UK’s decarbonisation prospects. With the renewable generation project pipeline amassing ever more as the nation races towards net zero targets, further constraints and delays are being witnessed.
One of the primary issues is due to the growing capacity requirements of both commercial and residential buildings, as explained by Nicholls in Current± Briefings: Tackling grid constraints as a developer.
“The electrification of buildings is going to be key to achieve net zero, but there are lots of issues here. We are going to need to electrify heating, hot water and transport which all increases demand on the network,” said Nicholls. “There are increased cost and time scales associated with connecting new developments,” he added.
Nicholls explains that a traditional 200-home development utilising dual fuel has an average electrical grid connection amounting to 402kVA with an estimated 657MWh annual grid electricity demand. Under the Future Homes Standard, new homes from 2025 must have a carbon footprint 75-80% lower than current levels.
With the inclusion of various low carbon technologies, a development of 200 all-electric homes will have an average grid connection amounting to 1,697kVA. The annual figure also rises in comparison to a dual fuel home with this sitting at 1,422MWh. Clearly, without action grid constraints will become increasingly concerning as further homes decarbonise.
To solve this issue, SNRG has developed the SmartGrid solution that can help reduce the average electrical consumption.
“Our SmartGrid solution can reduce peak demand, reinforcement costs as well as living costs by purchasing energy in periods when prices are lower,” Nicholls said.
The figures upon using the SmartGrid solution with an all-electric house developed under the Future Homes Standard, revealed a reduction in kVA of up to 50% in comparison to a home that does not utilise the product. In addition to this, the annual grid electricity demand can also be reduced to around 817MWh. The SmartGrid solution can also operate with commercial and industrial buildings to reduce costs.
On SmartGrids, Nicholls said: “SmartGrids reduce the cost of decarbonising the network, and do not pass costs onto consumers. Particularly at the moment when there is high price stress for energy consumers, I think that’s a really important part of the overall journey.”
Although SmartGrids offer a significant decrease in cost, it is still an increase on the dual fuel home meaning further work must be done to ensure the energy grid is able to support new homes being connected. For this, Nicholls pointed forward to changes being introduced in April in regard to grid connectivity.
“The reforms that are due to come in, in April, around connection charges and around access to the network, are significant in that they limit the scope of the charges that the developer has to bear. If you’ve got generation connected by demand, essentially, you’ll be treated as a demand customer. That’s good news for developers in terms of removing a significant cost barrier to sites going forward,” Nicholls said.
“In addition to that, there’s also new access connection requirements being placed upon Distribution Network Operators (DNOs). Importantly, the key one is around being able to offer non-firm connections for demand and some protections around the scope of those connections. This will allow sites to come forward more quickly where reinforcement is required. But importantly, those non-firm connections mean that, at certain points, those connections will be curtailed.”
Similar to these changes referenced by Nicholls, in September 2022, ESO raised a code modification, CMP 376, to formally introduce queue management (QM) arrangements. This is subject to approval.
The QM will allow projects that are ready to connect to do so ahead of customer projects that have applied earlier but are not ready or able to progress – something that has been under scrutiny from the energy sector. The QM will also introduce contractual milestones that customers must meet to retain their place in the connection queue, which will benefit everyone.
Watch the full Current± Briefings: Tackling grid constraints as a developer below: