Investing in flexibility in Britain’s energy system to help deliver its 2050 net zero target could result in material net savings of nearly £17bn a year, according to a Carbon Trust report.
Reaching net zero by 2050 will require an “unprecedented expansion of Britain’s energy system”, with electricity demand forecast to treble from 2019 levels.
The Flexibility in Great Britain report found that there is a need to embed flexibility across all energy sectors – power, heat and transport – to cut the cost of decarbonisation.
Embedding flexibility in low carbon heat and transport solutions now will help to reduce their system impact and costs, making the decarbonisation of these sectors more economically feasible.
Flexibility will also enable the development of a safe and secure net zero energy system that can operate cost-effectively in diverse situations such as, cold, still winter periods and summer solar excesses, while reducing Britain’s reliance on back-up gas-fired generation.
The value of flexibility to the energy system as a whole is many times its value to the electricity sector alone, because it allows for interactions at all levels in an integrated system, between vectors, and at the different timescales – from seconds to seasons, that are required to maintain a secure system, stated the report.
To achieve this, however, digitalisation is needed across the energy system to allow information sharing, monitoring and coordination between assets and organisations.
The analysis also considered the use of hydrogen across the energy system.
It found that the development of hydrogen uses and associated infrastructure (electrolysers, natural gas reformers, biomass gasifiers, CCS infrastructure, hydrogen turbines and storage) for 2050 has “significant system benefits if coordinated effectively”.
Driving this value is the ability of the system to optimise production from electrolysers to coincide with high energy supply times, store hydrogen and then use it for heating, power production and other applications across transport and industry.
However, there is a need to diversify hydrogen production routes (from electricity and water, gas and biomass) and develop CCS infrastructure at scale to deliver a hydrogen future cost effectively, highlighted the report.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Chair of the Carbon Trust (pictured), said: “The report demonstrates that energy flexibility can reduce the cost of meeting net zero and mitigate the impact of wider changes in the energy system, ensuring we reach net zero efficiently, effectively and at lowest cost.”
The report authors called for flexibility to be treated as a core infrastructure challenge and advised policymakers to try to preserve existing flexibility options, like hot water tanks, and act now to maximise future flexibility.
The analysis was led by the Carbon Trust and Goran Strbac, from Imperial College London, supported by a cross-sector group including EDF, Low Carbon UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution.