Posted by: @batpred

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Posted by: @jeff

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The savings are assessed by looking at what will happen if we don't have LDES. So like a lot of net zero things it doesn't necessarily mean our bills will be lower than they are now, just lower than than they would have been if we didn't have LDES. 

It makes sense to me. LDES would reduce the dependency of the grid on fossil fuel sources during long periods of no wind, low PV production, therefore constraining price increases (since net 0 will lead to further reductions in fossil fuel based generation). 

My thinking is investments on large scale storage that would also deliver power during peak day hours would reduce the number of days when the electricity prices are dictated by the (expensive) fossil fuel generators. 

I am sure other forum members have a better view...

 

If you want to read more, here is another consultation, this time on dispatchable power generally like LDES, but also new gas plants. 

Potential changes to the Capacity Market, which is a component on our bills. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/capacity-market-proposed-changes-for-prequalification-2026

There are a lot of decisions being made, locking in costs for the next 20 years to encourage private sector investment. 

Certainly going to be interesting how it all evolves and what are bills look like. There will be a lot more inflation linked and regulated costs than we are used with fossil fuels. 

@transparent  has been a passionate support of zonal pricing and home storage, although the government appear to be primarily going for private sector large scale solutions to date and locking in costs every year. 

Posted by: @technogeek

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3. Batteries can have a major impact on domestic bills, hence why I am currently embarked on installing a large battery system with some solar.

I found this to be the case, even without an ASHP. Curious on your thoughts on my hybrid inverter and experience with the battery. 

Posted by: @technogeek

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homes should be financially supported to install batteries which can be controlled by the local network operator for charging cycles

Whilst agreeing that we need to place storage batteries in the home, your suggested control mechanism is unaffordable and decreases grid resilience.

The local substations from which those home-based batteries would be recharged are unmonitored.
There are 550,000 of them.

Those few which have been monitored as part of 'trials' have cost about £10k each, plus ongoing costs to install and maintain a communications system to gather the data.
You then require a data centre and some clever software to calculate the available network capacity on the 11kV cables supplying those substations.

Giving any third-party control over assets within the home is fraught with ethical difficulties, liabilities for failures and vulnerability to cyber attack.

DESNZ is going to find this out once they start issuing licences for 3rd-party agents to turn off heat-pumps within homes.

The cheaper and simpler solution is to use autonomous control mechanisms.

It's possible for micro-controllers to gather the required data without human interaction, and then recharge a battery when it is most efficient to do so.
There's no need to collect that data in a central location, and therefore the system would be very difficult to disrupt.

It also prevents the mechanism becoming monetised by organisations in the energy sector.

Posted by: @transparent

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Posted by: @technogeek

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homes should be financially supported to install batteries which can be controlled by the local network operator for charging cycles

Whilst agreeing that we need to place storage batteries in the home, your suggested control mechanism is unaffordable and decreases grid resilience.

The local substations from which those home-based batteries would be recharged are unmonitored.
There are 550,000 of them.

Those few which have been monitored as part of 'trials' have cost about £10k each, plus ongoing costs to install and maintain a communications system to gather the data.
You then require a data centre and some clever software to calculate the available network capacity on the 11kV cables supplying those substations.

 

Giving any third-party control over assets within the home is fraught with ethical difficulties, liabilities for failures and vulnerability to cyber attack.

DESNZ is going to find this out once they start issuing licences for 3rd-party agents to turn off heat-pumps within homes.

 

The cheaper and simpler solution is to use autonomous control mechanisms.

It's possible for micro-controllers to gather the required data without human interaction, and then recharge a battery when it is most efficient to do so.
There's no need to collect that data in a central location, and therefore the system would be very difficult to disrupt.

It also prevents the mechanism becoming monetised by organisations in the energy sector.

Current progress on SESS and central control of heating, battery storage and EV. 

Consumer groups support it. For example from Citizens Advice

"We don’t think it is enough to assume that the market may be able to deliver
smartness for BESS without intervention. Standalone battery energy storage systems should be subject to the smart mandate required ements. This would ensure consistency across the government approach."

Citizens Advice also agree that demand side response was enabled by default so a third party could control an appliance under SESS. 

Be interesting to see how it evolves and what functionality is actually used. 

The governance consultation followed on from the above paper

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/smart-secure-electricity-systems-programme-sses-enduring-governance

Be interesting to see the other upcoming consultations and legislation. 

I expect the cheapest tariff will be tied to SESS to encourage take up. 

Posted by: @transparent

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Posted by: @technogeek

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homes should be financially supported to install batteries which can be controlled by the local network operator for charging cycles

Whilst agreeing that we need to place storage batteries in the home, your suggested control mechanism is unaffordable and decreases grid resilience.

The local substations from which those home-based batteries would be recharged are unmonitored.
There are 550,000 of them.

Those few which have been monitored as part of 'trials' have cost about £10k each, plus ongoing costs to install and maintain a communications system to gather the data.
You then require a data centre and some clever software to calculate the available network capacity on the 11kV cables supplying those substations.

I agree, the operation of a system managing hundreds of thousands of consumer hosted batteries would entail lots of effort and so cost managing contracts, monitoring systems (whether data centre hosted or not, anything that runs needs care and attention like cybersecurity required upgrades, etc), additional customer support, etc. 

Potentially there would be a good use case to monitor the electrical network better and improve availability and reduce waste. A system designed to factor in the learnings made and would scale to monitor key parameters in half a million substations should cost much less than the £5 billion. Pilots always cost more. Would it be better to couple such work with replacing with digital substations rather than retrofit monitoring into old ones?    

The much more technologically advanced telecom cell towers, that may be over 1.5 million in the UK may provide an example of how to keep costs down. 

@transparent

Posted by: @transparent

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Giving any third-party control over assets within the home is fraught with ethical difficulties, liabilities for failures and vulnerability to cyber attack.

DESNZ is going to find this out once they start issuing licences for 3rd-party agents to turn off heat-pumps within homes.

This will be interesting. I would have thought a fairly simple interface for batteries would be needed. A simple digital trigger to charge and a little intelligence in the battery to indicate to the control system charge had been completed. At least the battery system is a known load.

A heat pump on the other hand is a very variable load and would be difficult to predict. I am using my smart grid interface at the moment and it consists of simple switches which provide no intelligent feedback regards power requirements 😃

I agree third parties will find it a challenge and will this mean customers heat pumps will be switched off during times of grid stress in the middle of Winter? Think I will keep the oil boiler on standby! 🤣🤣

Regards

Posted by: @technogeek

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@transparent

Posted by: @transparent

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Giving any third-party control over assets within the home is fraught with ethical difficulties, liabilities for failures and vulnerability to cyber attack.

DESNZ is going to find this out once they start issuing licences for 3rd-party agents to turn off heat-pumps within homes.

This will be interesting. I would have thought a fairly simple interface for batteries would be needed. A simple digital trigger to charge and a little intelligence in the battery to indicate to the control system charge had been completed. At least the battery system is a known load.

A heat pump on the other hand is a very variable load and would be difficult to predict. I am using my smart grid interface at the moment and it consists of simple switches which provide no intelligent feedback regards power requirements 😃

I agree third parties will find it a challenge and will this mean customers heat pumps will be switched off during times of grid stress in the middle of Winter? Think I will keep the oil boiler on standby! 🤣🤣

Regards

The plan is not to switch off for extended periods.  Also it planned to be an opt out system so customers can choose not to take part, but I suspect this would lock customers out of the cheapest tariff. There are plans for safeguards to be built in

Posted by: @batpred

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NESO would have been consulted and would probably be a partner. That first large proposal would even need "major connections" to the 400k grid. 

That's unlikely.

The usual procedure is for a company to obtain planning permission first.
Only then will the DNO or NGET be prepared to open a file for a grid connection.

NESO would never be a partner.
They're the Energy Systems Operator, and remain independent.

In many cases the Planning Consent is the only asset owned by the Applicant.
They never had any intention of implementing what they proposed in the planning application.
They sell on the Consent to a 3rd party, pay themselves a dividend and close the company.

Many of these sites are bought up by a consortium, fronted by a UK-based company, but with foreign investment funds
and a Chinese hardware manufacturer signed up as 'sole supplier'.

You can spot these in later planning applications because they put in a Section 75 request to change the specification of everything for which Consent was first granted.

So long as they retain the Planning Conditions for site-screening, water run-off, noise and site access, it's unusual for an S75 application to be refused.

Sometimes I find points which still need challenging, such as an attempt to conceal the true identity of the Applicant,
or a proposal to install equipment which would pose a threat to the grid, for example.

Posted by: @batpred

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I believe the previous rejections were not due to grid management concerns. The common theme has been local opposition for changing the natural environment near them.

That's quite usual.

But the majority of objections from the public to an Energy-based Planning Application aren't made on 'material matters'.
Those are disregarded by the planners because they fall outside the scope of the Planning Regulations.

The public need to be better informed on energy matters and what is or isn't relevant.

Not all of these get picked up by the Statutory Respondents who have to be consulted, such as the Emergency Services.
For example, I spotted a BESS site where the emergency isolator location was furthest from the entrance gate into the compound.
In the event of a fire, the Fire & Rescue Crew would've needed to drive between rows of flaming battery containers in order to reach the Off-Button.

That's indicative of poor design work by the Applicant.
Professional Planners take note of that, and then pay greater attention to checking the other details.

Posted by: @technogeek

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will this mean customers heat pumps will be switched off during times of grid stress in the middle of Winter?

The plan is not to switch off for extended periods.  Also it planned to be an opt out system so customers can choose not to take part, but I suspect this would lock customers out of the cheapest tariff. There are plans for safeguards to be built in

I sent in two submissions to the SSES Governance Consultation.

They'd overlooked a number of technical issues which had been raised during the previous Implementation Consultation (2024).

For example, there was no procedure to address a heat-pump which has been switched off as part of the CLF process, but then failed to re-energise.
That would leave the household without heat & hot-water, but unaware that the CLF Agent had sent a Switch On command which had failed.

There were also two flaws in the Governance procedures which would allow a householder to continue operating the heat-pump, whilst the CLF Agent believed it to be off.
A credit would then be made to the home-owner's account with their Energy Supplier, which would be fraudulent.

There are industry representatives on the Committee developing the SSES strategies, but no consumer representatives.
That leaves them blind to situations which shouldn't really occur.

The SSES Governance proposals are that there are to be two Boards:

• Technical Governance Board
• Security Governance Board

The DESNZ statement on the first Board is:

However, they then propose only one seat on that Technical Board will be allocated to "A Consumer Interest Group Representative".

They fail to notice that us consumers aren't contained within Interest Groups, and we have wide experiences of energy-based consumer issues which are relevant.

How many of those in the Technical Governance Group do they think will be from households living in energy poverty I wonder?!

Posted by: @transparent

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Many of these sites are bought up by a consortium, fronted by a UK-based company, but with foreign investment funds
and a Chinese hardware manufacturer signed up as 'sole supplier'.

Would 'foreign investment funds' always translate to foreign money, I wonder.. 

Posted by: @transparent

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Posted by: @batpred

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I believe the previous rejections were not due to grid management concerns. The common theme has been local opposition for changing the natural environment near them.

That's quite usual.

But the majority of objections from the public to an Energy-based Planning Application aren't made on 'material matters'.

And no matter how hopeful we are that the future applications will not be delayed so easily, it will come down to concerns and objections... What always seems to be missing is sense of urgency. 

Posted by: @batpred

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And no matter how hopeful we are that the future applications will not be delayed so easily, it will come down to concerns and objections... What always seems to be missing is sense of urgency. 

 

We live in a democracy on a crowded island so everyone gets a say.  Then everyone has an opportunity to challenge through judicial review which can take years.  The consequent dragging out of infrastructure projects in particular is the price we pay for all these opportunities to stop or change things!  It's a heavy price it seems to me, but maybe not if you are personally affected.  

Posted by: @batpred

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[...] consent is often  refused for energy projects. 

[...] What always seems to be missing is sense of urgency. 

Do you there should be urgency to grant consent for more energy generation and storage sites?

Do you have data or evidence to underpin that?

Did you note the histogram I posted a couple of pages earlier, which shows the over-supply of generation and storage?

Do you believe NESO when they say that the Offers to Connect (to the grid) are four times what is required to meet decarbonisation of the grid by 2030?