Regen has been working closely with Western Power Distribution (WPD) to develop detailed scenarios to understand the future of distributed generation, demand and storage in their licence areas.

Off the back of this work WPD commissioned Regen to develop an approach to model the growth and operation of storage assets, so as to better understand how these assets are likely to be used and their ‘mode of operation’; including their typical profile of charge and discharge.

Regen developed and published an industry consultation, to see views from the sector around:

• The potential scale of growth of energy storage within its distribution networks
• The type of energy storage assets/projects that are likely to be deployed and their business models
• The typical operating behaviour of storage assets, how they are likely to be used and their typical daily mode(s) of operation

The consultation ran across summer 2017, with 27 organisations responding. The consultation paper and results report are available to download below:

WPD Storage Growth And Operating Modes Consultation Paper (May 2017)

WPD Storage Consultation Paper Results Report (August 2017)

Led by: Ray Arrell – Senior Project Manager

Contact: rarrell@regen.co.uk

This report comes as National Grid announced it has contracted with eight storage projects for total of 201 MW of capacity to provide services to help manage the network, while saving the operator an estimated £200 million.

Energy storage is poised to grow rapidly in the UK towards 10 GW in the 2030’s – but action is needed to align the technology with market and policy signals if this potential is to be realised.

Energy Storage: Towards a commercial model