by Brendan Coyne
Two flagship Low Carbon Networks Fund (LCNF) competition projects are struggling to recruit participants.
In its latest report to Ofgem, UK Power Networks, which was awarded £24.3 million in November 2010 to fund its Low Carbon London project, said the trial faced “significant challenges in the recruitment of residential trial participants”.
The biggest hurdles, though, were around recruiting enough industrial and commercial (I&C) participants for distributed energy automated network trials. That was because of an absence of incentives, and because potential recruits found the offering too complex, said UKPN. Potential customers were also reluctant to hand over control of generation installations.
The firm aims to solve the problem with a “taskforce” for I&C recruitment.
Other concerns highlighted by the firm included delays to the Renewable Heat Incentive, which had affected its heat pump trials, and a dearth of electric vehicle (EV) owners willing to take part. Of 463 owners contacted, the firm expected 24 to participate in the project. As a result, plans to trial time-of-use tariffs for heat and transport had been shelved until January 2013.
The other flagship LCNF project, Northern Power Grid’s Customer-led Network Revolution, also reported slow uptake in heat pump and EV participants. It is pinning its hopes on finding some EV participants by piggybacking other trials in the North East.
The number of small and medium-sized enterprises participating in demand-side response was also “relatively low” because of the low rewards on offer and the potential for business disruption.
However, Northern Power Grid said enrolment of trial participants for photovoltaic trials and time-of-use trials was “going well, with the former having 55 per cent of the target numbers recruited and the latter being oversubscribed”.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 6 July 2012.
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