Hammond's Clean Growth Needs Energy Storage Boost

5 years ago

Scottish company claims major boost to Government plans for decarbonisation can come from 2GW Pumped Storage Hydro proposals

Philip Hammond today announced a raft of green proposals in the Spring statement to help keep the UK as a global leader in tackling climate change. The Government wants to be seen to be listening to the #SchoolStrike4Climate and #ThisIsACrisis movements that have hit the headlines over recent months. In the statement Mr Hammond has announced an end to new-build fossil heated homes by 2025 and an acceleration of plans for a move to Green Gas.

Scottish company ILI Group believe they have a solution that can help, with 2GW of Pump-Storage Hydro planned that has the potential to offset millions of tons of CO2 every year.

Energy Storage is an essential enabler in the low carbon energy transition, allowing the Grid to store energy that cannot be absorbed naturally by consumers during times of peak wind or solar generation. Pumped storage hydro (PSH) is the cleanest energy storage technology currently available, offering the largest capacity.

By 2030, Imperial College and Poyry estimate that between 20GW and 35GW of storage would be required to facilitate a moderate to high level of renewable energy deployment.

ILI Group’s three site project is expected to bring over £2 Billion of investment into Scotland as well as create hundreds of much needed jobs at their respective locations. These plans would double the UK’s current pump storage hydro capacity.

The most advanced 450MW site, called Red John, at Loch Ness in Scotland’s Highlands will be able to generate enough electricity to power over 400,000 homes and offset over 1 million tons of CO2 emissions every year.

ILI Group CEO Mark Wilson said: “These are welcome incentives from the Government and a recognition that more action is urgently needed if we are to meet our climate change targets. We all need to do our part and pump storage hydro can play a major role in reducing our carbon emissions and is an essential enabler for renewable energy as the Government looks to increase the Offshore to 30GW by 2030.”

Former UK Energy Minister, Brian Wilson, said: "One way or another, there has to be back-up to the intermittency of renewable generation, and this creates a huge opportunity for UK industry. In Scotland, Pumped Storage Hydro - which provides 95 per cent of storage around the world - is the obvious answer instead of relying on imports via interconnectors.

"Hydro power has served Scotland exceptionally well in the past and can do so for many years to come. This is an opportunity to give an established technology a new lease of life with huge potential benefits for the Scottish economy while at the same time helping to solve the inescapable challenges posed by reliance on renewable generation".

ENDS 13 March 2019

Issued by Intelligent Land Investments Group

For further information or images contact:

Andrew Hughes / 01698 891 352 / 07456 539 239 / ah@ili-energy.com

Notes to editors:

In 2016, Carbon Trust/Imperial College produced analysis on the benefits of storage to the UK power system. This analysis was subsequently used by the National Infrastructure Commission in their 2016 ‘Smart Power’ report and concluded the following;

· The Carbon Trust/Imperial report concluded that base savings of up to £2.4 billion per annum could be realised by installing around 6GW of additional storage capacity by 2030.

· The report estimated that consumers would save around £50 per year if the 6GW was built, based on them only receiving 50% of the available savings.

· This £2.4bn saving is only due to the reduction of investment in gas plant

and the use of gas. It does not include saving from reducing investment in networks, or from other savings.

· The report identified that an additional £5 billion per annum could be saved by better optimisation of the power system, making a total of some £7.4 billion pa. These are partly attributable to the availability of storage to help manage the power system, reducing the need for generation and network investment.

So just 6GW of Energy storage could give a potential saving for the consumer of up to £150 per annum offsetting the increases in energy bills relating to renewable energy subsidies.

At present there is 4GW of new Pump Storage Hydro facilities in the pipeline in the UK.

IESIS publishes new strategy paper, 29 November 2018:

Engineering for Energy - A proposal for governance of the energy system

About ILI Group PLc

LI Group operates across the energy storage, renewable energy and residential development markets; creating value for our investors in all three sectors. ‘Intelligent Land Investments’ was formed in 2004 with the aim of helping resolve the UK’s housing crisis by promoting eco-friendly developments where the housing need is the greatest. The experience and expertise gained in site selection and planning was later put to use with the aim of helping reduce CO2 emissions by focusing on creating planning gain from renewable energy projects. Projects ranged from medium sized, single turbine developments under the UK’s Feed-in Tariff scheme, right up to large scale multi-turbine windfarms. In 2017 ILI Group Plc was formed with the express aim of achieving planning consents for three Pumped Storage Hydro Sites (PSH) in Scotland. Each one is an infrastructure project of national significance with a total combined storage capacity of over 2GW.