National Grid boss denies storage could destabilise grid
Published 9 November 2016
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National Grid chief executive John Pettigrew has told Utility Week that he does not believe it is possible for domestic energy storage to undermine grid economics.
Some industry leaders have warned that a widespread uptake of distributed generation and energy storage could lead to a significant decline in power flows across the electricity grid, and undermine its ability to pay for itself. In an interview with Utility Week, however, Pettigrew said such a development is not at all likely.
“We are seeing significant reduction in prices of storage. But most of the scenarios that I’ve seen, optimistically, you’re talking about three, maybe 3.5GW by the early 2020s,” he observed. “So against the backdrop of how much generation there will be in the UK it’s not going to change the fact that the vast majority of the energy will still flow through the networks.”
Pettigrew’s position on this matter clashes with that of Centrica chief executive Iain Conn who said at Utility Week’s Energy Summit in July that distributed energy generation, coupled with energy storage is set to introduce “huge complexity in managing the grid system”.
He added: “It is even possible that distributed energy may increase to the point where it will challenge the economics of the central grid and generating system. The grid could eventually become back-up, swapping places with the traditional role hitherto assumed by distributed generation.”
Industry sources have also informed Utility Week that the scope for an exodus of power flows from the national grid had been a recent source of discussion at Number 10, but Pettigrew said, “The concept that storage and solar, in the short term, are going to reduce the vast majority of the use of the network is not something I’ve talked to Number 10 about because I don’t think they would believe it – I certainly don’t believe it.”
Pettigrew does believe however, that increasing demand for energy storage is one of the reasons why a “fundamental” review of the existing network charging regime is needed “pretty soon”.
Read the full interview in the issue of 11 November, and online tomorrow (10 November)
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