Green Energy
Meeting the new energy demand calls for joined up thinking
As more industries turn to electricity to accelerate their decarbonisation strategies, the UK’s electricity infrastructure is under greater pressure than ever. In the light of this new energy demand, Giles Benbow, senior manager business and partnership development at Mer calls for conversations around energy security, and securing solar energy and battery storage into the solutions, and more.
T
he global energy infrastructure is facing new challenges as we strive to move away from carbon-emitting, fossil-fuelled energy generation towards renewable sources. The challenges go way beyond simply replacing one form of energy production with another. There is a whole new energy demand from industries that are switching away from gas, oil and coal to electricity. Transport is an obvious sector in transition. Electrification and e-mobility are key levers for delivering zero emissions. As well as the increasing take-up of electric vehicles for industrial and residential purposes, over half of the railway lines in Europe are already electrified. Sectors like domestic heating and some industrial
22 | electrical wholesalerJune 2023
processes are replacing their dependence on fossil fuels with electricity. All of which is giving rise to a new energy demand. As John Pettigrew, CEO of the National Grid has said, we will need to build about seven times as much infrastructure in the next seven or eight years than we have built in the last 32 years. A lot of this will be new infrastructure, not just ‘new’ in the sense of replacing or replicating the existing energy infrastructure, but involving radical new thinking around energy and providing access to energy.
Access to power
For electric vehicles, access to power is clearly essential, and the most reliable source of energy is the grid. Over the past twenty years, energy
efficiency methods have helped to reduce consumption while energy generation assets have, on the whole, maintained the capacity to generate. So, you would think that there is sufficient supply to meet demand. Not so. The new energy demand is going to put much more pressure on supply, and especially on distribution. Access to power via the local, regional distribution network operators (DNOs) is the biggest pinch point. For anyone looking to electrify at scale, connecting to the grid is critical. There are pressures on both suppliers and consumers to future-proof access across all sectors, not just transport. Planning ahead and budgeting for the future is essential, and businesses need to start thinking about different solutions. Accessing power using the current
ewnews.co.uk
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