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An industry row over the best way to develop energy storage and the role of DNOs broke out at a select committee hearing this week.
On one side, industry experts claimed that giving DNOs ownership and operation of energy storage projects would be the best way to develop the nascent technology. On the other side, Tempus Energy chief executive Sara Bell slammed DNOs for their lack of innovation and said they couldn’t be trusted to lead the development of storage.
The Energy and Climate Change select committee, which was hearing evidence on smart grids, was trying to identify barriers to the uptake of energy storage. Energy storage, which is not yet available on a wide scale, would mitigate the fluctuations of renewable generation.
Stephen Goldspink, Siemens Energy Management’s director, Strategy and Business Development, told the committee that DNO ownership would be a “really positive step” to removing barriers to storage uptake as currently no incentive exists to encourage DNOs to utilise storage for constraint management and other grid support functions.
But Bell told the committee DNOs are “not known for their innovative approach”. She added: “If you site the [storage] unit with an organisation that wants to optimise the whole value chain you will get the most economic response and that unfortunately is not the DNO”.
Other solutions put to the select committee on how to quickly remove barriers included the ability to bid for a contract for difference on the basis of a hybrid of technology and for energy storage to no longer be classified as an “end user”.
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