The Open Networks Project is at the heart of this once-in-a-generation change. It is laying the foundations for a smart grid that will help us efficiently deliver on the UK’s emissions targets while continuing to meet our daily energy needs.
Through the recently launched Open Networks Future Worlds consultation, the energy networks are seeking a wide range of views on five possible scenarios for the future described as “Future Worlds”. These scenarios go beyond the proposals made by the UK government’s recent Cost of Energy Review. They range from a decentralised system to a more centralised system, and even a scenario with new independent national or regional organisations, labelled flexibility co-ordinators.
Whatever the outcome, we can expect to see a fundamental and structural change to our energy system – one that’s needed for us to have a smart, reliable and cleaner energy future.
A smart grid will change electricity networks in the UK in the same way the Internet revolutionised communications. Instead of a centralised model with power travelling in one direction to the customer, a smart grid allows for ordinary homes and businesses to use and generate power as they wish. The new system will be multi-directional, dynamic and controllable to ensure power is always where it needs to be.
More choice
More broadly, a flexible energy system give us more choice over how we use new technologies and energy sources in our everyday lives. In the future, renewable energy production, batteries, electric vehicles, peer-to-peer energy trading, smart homes, green and hydrogen gas, will all compete with traditional energy. It’s a future we all need to embrace – our experience of markets tell us new technologies generate competition, drive innovation and save people money.
A smarter, more flexible and more decentralised UK energy system could deliver up to £40 billion of benefits by 2050, according to research by Imperial College and The Carbon Trust. But the benefits extend well into the broader economy. A smarter energy system could result in £13 billion of Gross Value Added, generate £5 billion of potential exports to 2050 and create up to 9,000 jobs over the 2020s and 2030s.
Rapid change
With the rapid pace of change, a smarter system will also allow network operators to better balance increases or reductions in generation and consumption; respond to the use of energy efficiency measures in homes and businesses; and work with storage facilities or heat networks. In simple terms, this means maximising the efficiency of the networks, reducing losses, optimising the costs of network upgrades, reducing power cuts or outages and minimising disruptions.
Of course, the networks are already helping us to see into the future – they have been pioneering the integration of electric vehicles, battery technology and local energy projects onto the grid. In Great Britain alone, more than 1,300 innovation projects have been delivered. More than 28GW of distributed energy resources have also already been connected to the grid.
As we continue to build momentum and make solid progress toward a smart grid, it is critical that everyone has a say over how the future UK energy system operates – not only the 10 network operators, Ofgem and BEIS, who have partnered to lead the Open Networks Project. There will be new roles and responsibilities for everyone – network operators, energy suppliers, transmission owners, consumer groups, regional consortiums, flexible service providers and local energy systems.
The findings of the Open Networks Future Worlds consultation, which closes on 25 September 2018, will be analysed and form a critical input to detailed Future Worlds impact assessments in the months ahead.