Chris Rason, MD Energy Services at Aggreko, responds to the Government’s plans to reduce delays to new and upgraded grid connections.
The Government rightly wants to reduce the time it takes to connect to the electricity grid, which can cause significant delays to the commercial and residential developments that are critical to boosting economic growth. However, grid connections and a lack of capacity are also significant hindrances to expanding operations of large energy users, for example manufacturing plants and data centres, where a lack of available power from the grid can stop growth and expansion in their tracks.
Several of the proposals outlined in the Spring Budget look promising. But while they look promising, they are lacking any truly forward-thinking approaches such as decentralised power generation. We have proven that decentralised power generation can both mitigate lengthy delays to grid connections in the first place and protect uptime on critical processes.
To make decentralised energy a priority, we would like to see the Government put forward a strategic approach that raises awareness of the benefits amongst large energy users, particularly those that do not have dedicated energy managers, and to support them with the technical challenges of implementation.
Our view is that the most promising form of decentralised electricity generation is gas generation, combined with a battery storage solution. This approach takes advantage of the price differential between electricity and gas, with gas being considerably cheaper per kWh.
This approach also makes commercial sense when thinking about the risk involved in the capital costs of setting up new grid connections. There is no guarantee that the investment will generate adequate returns – which is why decentralised short term energy solutions are so important.
Short term energy solutions offer a financially viable solution to the challenge of cost and does not require capital expenditure while waiting for new or upgraded grid connections. We hope the Government will include decentralised short term energy solutions in a strategic approach to addressing the impact of delays to new and upgraded grid connections.
