column-britain installs first grid-scale battery: kemp - electricity storage

London, April 25Reuters)-
Britain's most ambitious smart grid project is being built in a residential area of Leighton Buzzard, a fast-growing commuter town in northern London.
British power network (UKPN)
The company, which owns and operates cables and lines in southeast England, is installing a huge battery farm that powers local users during peak hours.
About 240 tons of lithium
Ion batteries are installed in a specially designed building 2 metres above the ground to protect it from flooding in nearby rivers.
The battery room will be empty.
Keep the battery comfortable at a stable 23 degrees Celsius to extend the working life.
The demonstration project is scheduled to begin operation in September, co-funded by UK gas and electricity companies and low carbon network funds managed by the UK office of natural gas and electricity markets.
Once fully operational, Leighton Buzzard will have the ability to discharge power up to 10 MWhours (MWh)
Power supply to local distribution networks at speeds of up to 6 MW (MW)
Enough 6,000 homes.
The aim is to test the technical and financial feasibility of using storage to reinforce the grid and help meet peak loads as an alternative to the traditional method of installing more substations and overhead power lines.
Many analysts believe that electricity storage is expensive and impractical.
But interest in storage is growing rapidly.
California has instructed utilities to install or purchase 1,300 MW of storage capacity by 2020 as part of the state's plans to increase renewable energy generation and reduce emissions.
Both Germany, Italy and China have ambitious plans for electricity storage.
The remote island community, where the alternative runs expensive diesel generators, is also the main candidate for plans to combine solar and wind energy with battery farms.
British Scottish and Southern Energy companies have developed a plan in the Shetland Islands near the northern coast of Scotland to discharge 3 megawatts a day to help offset the peak at night.
Other island communities in the Azores, the Caribbean and the Pacific have also been identified as promising sites for integrated batteriesand-
Renewable energy projects reduce power outages and reduce dependence on diesel.
According to traditional textbooks, unlike physical goods such as oil, natural gas and coal, electricity cannot be easily stored.
The power generated by the generator must match the power required by the customer for the second time.
For a century, the power industry has met the changing and unpredictable needs of users by gathering users in large networks (
Overall, customer behavior is more stable and predictable than individual users)
In order to meet the surge in demand, there is a lot of backup power generation and transmission capacity at hand.
Generation by generation
But the government's ambitious goal is to tackle climate change through electricity and low carbon, a traditional model that is being broken.
The UK will need more power generation and transmission capacity over the next 30 years, and power supply will become more volatile and unpredictable.
The government plans to replace gasoline and diesel.
Electric cars and gas cars-
A household boiler using an electric heater, which means six-
By 2050, peak demand had increased from the current 60,000 MW to 370,000 MW.
At the same time, the government plans to reduce the carbon dioxide content of the system by increasing the generation of renewable energy sources such as wind energy and solar energy, which means that there is greater variability in supply because they cannot be arranged like coal and natural gas --
Thermal power plant.
To meet the combined demand for heating and lighting in the winter evenings, the UK's power generation and transmission systems have been stretched.
In order to meet the peak demand of only 100 hours per year, a large number of spare power generation and transmission capacity have been reserved.
In the future, with the growth of consumption and unpredictable supply, it will become more difficult and expensive to meet peak demand.
As a result, policy makers and industries are considering how to adapt to traditional models of power generation and distribution.
One option is to eliminate peak consumption by introducing smart meters and time tariffs, and to make demand more flexible.
By 2020, smart meters will be installed in every household in the UK.
Smart meters will measure electricity consumption every half hourhour period.
In theory, once a smart meter is installed, suppliers can impose higher tariffs during peak hours (
Usually four o'clock P. M. to eight o'clock P. M. in the evening in winter)
When demand is low, customers are encouraged to shift consumption to other times of the day, which will make more efficient use of power generation and transmission assets.
Another major option is to introduce more storage on the network.
The storage unit will absorb excess power overnight, when wind and solar output is particularly high, and then discharge during peak hours to smooth the demand curve.
Britain already has some limited power storage in the form of water pumps. hydro.
The Dinorwig Power Station in north Wales was fully operational in 1984.
Deliver the water to the peak power of the upper reservoir.
Then, by opening the gate and letting the water flow back to the lower reservoir through six giant turbines, power can be supplied back to the grid.
According to operator First Hydro, Dinorwig can produce up to 288 MW and reach maximum power generation in 16 seconds.
First Hydro also owns and operates a smaller, older facility near Ffestiniog that can deliver 90 megawatts of electricity to the grid in about 60 seconds.
Pump problem-
Storage is very expensive and the right location is rare.
The battery is cheaper and can be adjusted to the required size.
Batteries of any size can be installed-
From the individual residence to the street, and even directly to the distribution and transmission network at the substation level.
But batteries are still more expensive than traditional network reinforcement.
In general, to meet peak demand, distribution companies find it cheaper to install additional lines and substations.
UKPN set the capital cost of the Leighton Buzzard battery program at £ 11.
2 million ($18. 82 million)
, Contrast 6.
£ 2 million for regular reinforcement with additional overhead power cord and another transformer.
In a 2011 report, the company acknowledged: "On a purely capital spending basis, energy storage rarely competes with traditional options . ".
But the company hopes that if costs fall and experience increases, battery storage may become more economical in the future.
Battery enthusiasts also want their storage units to be able to earn extra revenue by providing a variety of additional services to the grid, for which they will be paid.
Battery Farm can earn extra income by providing fast balance service
Respond and participate in short-
According to S & C Electric Europe, the long-term operational reserve has done a lot of design and engineering work on Leighton Buzzard.
Battery farms can also help adjust the voltage, provide reactive power to support the grid, and earn compensation based on the government's capacity market plan.
There are still some problems that need to be overcome before the battery farm starts releasing all these additional sources of revenue.
British regulators believe that electricity storage is a way to generate electricity.
According to current rules, distribution network operators like UKPN do not intend to have "power generation" assets directly, so they must be organized through independent third parties.
The huge battery farm still looks strange.
But storage may play a bigger role in future smart grids.
If that's the case, it's largely due to Leighton Buzzard. ($1 = 0.
5953)(
Edit by Keiron Henderson)