Why the UK's Power Grid is Sidelining Clean-Energy Battery Storage

The administrators of Great Britain's power grid admit that it's often unable to use energy-storage batteries due to old computer systems and an old network with "not enough cables", according to the Financial Times — though the system operator says they're making progress after upgrading their system last December: The company has plans to lower the rate at which batteries are sidelined to single figures by early next year [said Craig Dyke, from National Grid's electricity system operator], calling current levels "higher than where we want them to be". Dyke's comments came in response to a letter from four leading battery storage groups which said National Grid's "electricity system operator" or ESO division was making the country's power costlier and dirtier by failing to use their technology properly. "Consumers are paying more, clean renewable energy is being wasted, and fossil fuel generation is being used instead," they said... depriving them of revenue and undermining investor confidence. While the U.K. has the world's second-largest offshore wind market, the article notes that when the system operator can't send its power where it's needed, "the ESO pays wind farms in one place to switch off... and can also need to pay gas-fired power plants in another area to turn on. These payments add up to hundreds of millions of pounds each year, and the costs are passed on to household and business energy bills." "Use of battery storage abroad has soared in places such as California, where batteries soak up solar power during the day and regularly supply a fifth of the state's power in the evening..." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.

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