Matthew Lumsden, CEO of battery energy storage experts Connected Energy, explains how battery energy storage can help energy managers meet their net zero goals.
For many years, energy managers have focused on reducing energy consumption by deploying a raft of efficiency measures. A growing number of buildings have installed LED lighting and maybe even an energy management system (EMS) – great ways to cut both carbon emissions and energy bills. Some might even have a rooftop solar array.
However, the next phase in the road to Net Zero is much more complicated, for two reasons. Firstly, because it is going to significantly add to almost any building’s energy load; and secondly because the lower-cost measures like LED have already been implemented. We’re now into the hard yards.
Changing perspectives
At Connected Energy, we are increasingly seeing major corporations and the public sector use a new metric for investing in decarbonisation. In the past, they largely looked at cost-neutral technologies or even ones that benefited the bottom line. However, with high targets to meet, they are willing to make investments to ensure those goals are achieved. This means the metric is now based on the best price per tonne of carbon emissions saved. And in this scenario, battery energy storage systems (BESS) can be very attractive.
BESS use batteries to store and provide power as and when it is needed. In this way, they can help to manage spikes in demand while also enabling your buildings to use greener or cheaper electricity. They can also be a key part of an off-grid energy ecosystem.
Why is energy consumption going to increase?
Another reason more organisations are looking at BESS is because electrification is going to increase energy usage. In many cases, the next raft of decarbonisation measures for buildings includes installing heat pumps and more electric vehicle (EV) chargers – both are high-load items in terms of their pull on the grid.
This can cause problems as a company’s energy supply contract includes something called its maximum import capacity (MIC), which is the upper limit on how much power their premises can draw down from the grid.
Crucially, most sites experience peak demand spikes, meaning that you might only be exceeding your grid connection capacity for short periods each day. In this instance, paying for a grid upgrade would not make commercial sense.
What if there was a solution available that could not only help you to power these new technologies, and avoid a DNO upgrade, but could also integrate with both your EMS and your solar array? The answer could be battery energy storage.
How BESS can help energy managers
BESS can solve many of the challenges facing facilities managers around these next steps for Net Zero:
- Avoid a DNO upgrade through peak shaving
A great deal of UK businesses are experiencing capacity issues as they expand their sites or introduce new technology such as EV charging and heat pumps. If a DNO upgrade will cost more than £200,000 then it’s worth looking at battery storage as an alternative.
- Use more green energy
You can use a BESS to buy and store energy from the grid when renewable generation is high, helping to reduce your scope 3 emissions.
- Integrate with solar
BESS can also help optimise the value of rooftop renewables by storing surplus ‘green’ energy to make it available as and when it is required. This also boosts the return on investment from renewables. Crucially, if there is a large cost differential between the cost of energy export and import, then BESS can provide a real return on investment here.
- Improve heat pump viability
BESS can make the difference when it comes to the business case for heat pumps, which can be marginal in the UK. Put simply, if you’re looking to install heat pumps, BESS can reduce the payback period of this infrastructure investment.
BESS in an energy ecosystem
A battery energy storage system is integrated with a site’s existing energy infrastructure, sitting on the same meter points or substation as other assets on site. In addition to managing the peak loads of EV chargers or heat pumps, a BESS can also track other loads on site as well as the total site load. In this way, a BESS helps to ensure that your combination of site loads does not exceed your capacity limit.
Best possible savings
Connected Energy offers the most sustainable BESS solution possible. This is because we take batteries from end-of-life EVs and give them a second life in BESS, a unique proposition that is far more environmentally friendly than using a BESS with new batteries. Therefore, investing in BESS built with second life batteries can deliver even bigger decarbonisation benefits.
To find out more, visit our website connected-energy.co.uk