The UK National Grid is a remarkable thing. Just reflect for one moment. The grid allows you to turn on a light, whenever you need it. This isn’t the case in other countries. In South Africa, the grid doesn’t deliver power 24 hours a day. In the USA, the grid is remarkably unreliable, as the 2021 Texas power crisis showed. Here we look at ways that consumers can play their part in decarbonising the grid.

It is the job of the ESO (Electricity System Operator) to balance the grid, to ensure supply matches demand. And this is a complex task, which ultimately requires fossil fuel power plants to be dialled up or down to meet demand.

But we are now in a different age, where supply might be intermittent (depending on the Sun or the Wind), and we are closing fossil fuel power stations across the nation. And this is causing some people to believe that decarbonising the grid is fraught with risk, as renewables make up a larger and larger proportion of supply.

This is where demand flexibility comes in.

If supply lies somewhat outside our control, then flexible consumption can resolve many of the short term issues. In other words, the “immediate to 12 hour” demand for electricity can be flexed (increased or decreased) to balance supply.

The role of the home storage battery.

At the moment, home storage batteries are commonly referred to as a “Solar Battery.” The principal way in which they are sold to customers is with the following argument:

“Your domestic solar PV array generates power whenever the sun comes out, and this isn’t necessarily aligned with your consumption. The battery stores that energy for when you need it, and due to the way electricity is priced, you’ll save money from day 1.”

For now, the home storage battery is a niche product. Whilst batteries are now routinely being sold alongside new Solar PV systems, very few have been retrofitted relative to the number of Solar PV systems out there across the nation.

The future of the home storage battery

According to Karl Bach, co-founder of Axle Energy, the battery will come to be seen as simply an Economic Asset that you own, that works in the background to save you money. As a user, you won’t need to interact with the battery at all.

As Karl goes on to state: “the homeowner will simply be able to trust the fact that the battery is working to minimise your electricity bill on your behalf.”

What does this look like in practice? Essentially the battery will be told to charge up or discharge by remote signals. When the grid has excess power, the battery can be told to charge up automatically, soaking up this excess supply.

Octopus Power Ups

Octopus Energy have made moves down this road by offering customers “Octopus Power Ups”. In certain postcodes in certain areas of the UK, electricity is free at specific “super-green” times.

At the moment this requires action by the user. The user needs to either literally use electricity at these times (easier said than done in many cases) or tell their battery (if they have one) to store it then, for use later.

In the future, this “price-signal” will be sent directly to your battery, which will then charge up.

In other words, the battery will soak up that excess wind or solar power from the grid, and release it when the supply is more constrained.

Octopus Power Ups is a trial at the moment, but fast forward a few years, and it will become routine.

Decarbonising the Grid with Demand Flexibility Service

The other scheme that has been running recently is the Demand Flexibility Service. This is about reducing consumption in times of constrained supply. Over the winter of 2023-24, customers up and down the UK have been paid to reduce their consumption at specific times. Again, this has required user action. Octopus Energy even ran a competition of who can send in a picture with their most extreme energy saving measures: cue pictures of card games by candle light.

But we don’t actually need to return to a pre-electricity era and read by candle light in order to decarbonise the grid.

In this instance Axle Energy have already proven that their technology works. Axel Energy automatically discharged the energy stored within their customer’s batteries in line with the demand signal from the Electricity System Operator. And for this, the customer earnt money.

On December 1 2023  Harnessing thousands of batteries in the grid’s hour of need (axle.energy), the customers with a GivEnergy All in One were able to earn about £38 in 90 minutes, during a “live” demand flexibility event.

In the future, according to Karl, customers will simply receive a monthly payment to reflect their asset’s provision of services to the grid.

At this point, you are not so much buying a “Solar Battery” as opposed to an “economic asset” that works to reduce your electricity bill on the one hand, and earn you money on the other hand.

When can this happen?

“Technically we can do this now”, says Karl.

Learn more about how we can decarbonise the Grid as we explore this topic in future posts.

Brimstone Energy UK will guide you through the Green Energy Transition.