The government has been told to reform the planning system and rules overseeing financial support mechanisms in a bid to encourage more battery and green hydrogen projects to co-locate with offshore wind.
Setting the scene, RenewableUK laid out how to make the best use of the UK’s vast renewable energy resources, highlighting how batteries are able to provide short or long-term power, and that surplus clean power can be used to make green hydrogen which can then be stored and used whenever it is needed, with both boosting the UK’s energy security.
However, as it stands, only 3MW of operational battery storage capacity is co-located with offshore wind in UK waters. Another 600MW of storage capacity has the green light to move forwards, while several offshore wind developers are exploring the potential to co-locate with green hydrogen, but there are regulatory barriers and uncertainties stifling the potential to capture the full benefits for co-located business models.
This is what RenewableUK has sought to overcome, laying out a series of recommendations for the government, Ofgem, The Crown Estate, Crown Estate Scotland and local planning authorities, including reforming the Contracts for Difference (CfD) auctions so that co-location of energy storage and offshore wind is encouraged by enabling new metering arrangements and interactions with the Hydrogen production Business Model.
It also wants to see current rules restricting owners of offshore transmission cables and electricity substations from entering this new market overhauled, allowing storage and green hydrogen projects to be easier developed alongside offshore wind; for the efficiency of the planning system to be improved by enabling developers to seek consent for offshore wind and storage projects at the same time, rather than separately; and for a network of pipelines to transport green hydrogen produced by offshore wind to be developed, taking it to where it is needed.
Senior Policy Analyst, Yonna Vitanova, said: “The UK has a great opportunity to build a more resilient energy system by integrating batteries and green hydrogen projects into offshore wind infrastructure, either at sea or near substations onshore. But at the moment neither the CfD process nor the planning system are set up in a way to encourage this […] With clearer rules and regulations in place, the UK can unleash the benefits co-location can provide to the system and ultimately to billpayers.”
