UK Networks Grapple with Low Carbon Transition
The UK Energy Networks Association launched a consultation August 17 to seek views on how to create a smart electricity grid that enables innovation and more opportunities for distributed energy technologies.
The consultation will look at ways to encourage innovation and competition in the market to keep down the costs of operating and maintaining the energy networks. The benefits can be shared with customers both through cost savings but also through new technologies and services that allow them to benefit directly from a smarter electricity grid. In the current energy network price control period (2015-2023), local electricity networks are forecast to deliver almost £1bn ($1.29bn) of savings as result of innovation, ENA said.
ENA CEO David Smith said: "Our energy networks increasingly need to access the latest technologies and services in order to ensure continued reliable and cost-effective electricity supply as part of a decarbonised system. This paper is about ensuring they have the access to those things, but also about how we can ensure that we make the most of the smart transition for those companies providing them.”
A government spokesman for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that networks "will have an important role to play in the move towards a smart electricity system. Our recently-published Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan sets out reforms to the way that network and operators manage the system and we welcome the progress made by the Energy Networks Association on this issue. We encourage industry to engage with the Commercial Principles paper.”
The British energy regulator Ofgem
announced August 4 a new strategy, to address decarbonisation and the fair recovery of costs as more users generate their own power but still need access to the national grid.
