The ETI has issued a request for proposals for organisations interested in taking part in a project which will carry out a techno-economic evaluation of transportable energy storage.
With increasing use of renewable energy sources there are many cases where generation sites are not within easy reach of the homes and businesses that need the electricity.
For example, offshore wind-farms are inevitably further from major conurbations than existing coal-fired power stations. In this situation, how the energy is moved from where it is generated to where it is needed becomes a more critical aspect of the overall energy system.
More remote locations are more costly, and difficult to connect to transmission lines, be they electricity networks or pipelines. At the same time the intermittency of renewable energy sources places a greater emphasis on the use of energy storage to balance supply and demand for electricity.
Transporting stored energy is one possible way to address both of these concerns simultaneously.
In deciding whether to support the development of transportable energy storage technologies, the ETI needs access to a thoughtful and factual analysis that considers all the relevant factors and identifies where transportable energy storage is most likely to be beneficial and at what cost the development of potential technologies could deliver transmission scale transportable storage.
This project will be successful if it enables:
• An assessment of the potential economics and contribution of energy storage and transportation as part of a future UK energy system
• Identification of the most promising technologies and their development requirements
• Identification of potential situations most suited to the use of transportable energy storage and, if possible, recommendation of locations and scope for the next stage of technology development and demonstration
The study will provide information to the ETI as to the relative merits of transportable energy storage and the potential to move forward to a demonstration project.
The deadline for submitting an intention to bid is 10 September 2010
The closing date for bid submission is 30 September 2010
The Request for Proposals can be found at http://bit.ly/9cWmeM
