Agenda item

The Portfolio Holder for Environment introduced Tom Jennings from Kiwi Power, who were the business partners to the joint venture company SSDC – Opium Power Ltd.  She said they were energy storage optimisers to maximise the return on the investment and the asset performance.  She said this was a fast growing market and was pleased to welcome Mr Jennings to explain this green energy provision.

Mr Jennings provided a power point presentation and advised that:-

·         Battery stored energy would help towards supporting the net-zero carbon future

·         Electricity demand must equal electricity generation on a day to day basis

·         The changing sources of electricity generation from 2000 were nuclear, coal, gas, energy from France and hydro-electricity.  By 2010, wind power was increasingly important. By 2020 coal was switched to bio-mass and there was a huge increase in wind power.

·         By 2025 it was anticipated that off-shore wind would generate a greater amount of the required electricity and solar energy generation would peak during daylight hours to create excess energy. Therefore the storage of the excess generated energy would fill the gaps in demand.

·         The use of batteries to store the renewable energy to when it was required would help to achieve the net-zero carbon future.

·         The increased use of electric vehicles would increase the demand of energy overnight and this needed to be managed.

·         Increased use of electric heating would increase demand for energy during the day and particularly in the evening in winter.

·         Electricity had become as important as food and the security of supply was equally important.

·         There was a huge opportunity for growth in the battery balancing and energy trading markets.

·         It was estimated that there would be a 20% increase in energy demand which would be driven by electric heating and electric vehicles and there was 150 GWh to fill, predominantly by battery storage of energy.

In response to questions from Members, Mr Jennings of Kiwi Power and Tim Humpage of British Renewables advised:-

·         Large localised energy storage units would be built across the country to meet demand

·         The smallest units for a residential property battery storage could be 20KWh which would take solar energy through the day to use the power at night.

·         The battery storage site in Taunton was 30MWh.

·         Life cycle of the battery storage sites was 7 to 10 years and all of the batteries were fully recyclable.

·         Capturing the energy from the solar array across the South West would be a huge move towards net carbon zero.

·         The electricity meters at the storage site in Taunton were read remotely every 30 minutes.

·         The batteries used at the Taunton site were lithium and they had a regular maintenance cycle and information on this could be provided.

·         Battery installations were the same as any power plant with a maintenance contract.  Testing would be carried out each year to ensure the batteries were within warranty parameters.  The batteries had a degradation curve and they did not all fail together so systematic replacement was built into the financial plan.  This kept the asset at the same level so the asset was secured.

·         The WEEE Regulations were very strong in the UK for the disposal of batteries.

·         The organisation was very conscious that technology could be damaging to the environment and the producers of the batteries at the Taunton site owned their own mines and so had control and a level of environmental responsibility.

·         The new flow batteries were exciting and they were being developed in the UK.

At the conclusion of the debate, the Portfolio Holder for Environment and the Chairman thanked the officers for their presentation and for answering Members questions.

The presentation was NOTED.