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The government needs to invest in energy storage to deal with “significant technical challenges" posed by variable renewable generation, according to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).
In a new report, IMechE stated the “issue of wrong-time generation” from renewable sources – where the levels of renewable energy supply and consumer demand fail to match up – could be dealt with by energy storage.
It stated that energy storage “provides a potential solution” to this challenge and would help to match supply and demand across peak and off-peak periods.
The report added that constraint payments to windfarm operators –which are made when generators are not able to supply the power they have generated to the electricity grid – could be reduced as the energy generated could be stored and used at periods of higher demand.
This would reduce the need for constraint payments, which IMechE said are becoming “a major concern” to energy consumers who are “effectively funding the non-supply of electricity”.
IMechE also warned that the flexible gas turbines that are used to meet periods of peak demand represent a “step in the wrong direction” as the UK seeks to lower its carbon emissions.
The report called on the government to focus energy storage on transport and heat, as well as electricity; to recognise storage “cannot be incentivised by conventional market mechanisms”; and to “reject its obsession with cheapness in the energy market”.
Dr Tim Fox, head of energy and environment at IMechE, said: “At the moment constraint payments for renewable based electricity generation makes up a relatively small proportion of the total, but as the installed capacity of these technologies increases in the future the issue of such payments will likely become of growing public concern.
“Virtually any form of energy storage could help alleviate this problem, by allowing surplus generation from intermittent renewable sources to be stored by power providers until needed for use at a different time when demand exists.”
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