What were you doing on 8 April?

If you work in the UK power community, you’ll have seen almost 12.7GWh of wind generated electricity being curtailed-or taken off the Grid- for fear of overloading it. That’s the same amount of power as 1,500,000 UK homes use in a day *

The curtailment figure for the first half of this year alone stands at 1.6TWh*.   To put it in a fleet transport electrification context, that’s enough electricity to power a fleet of 50 electric HGVs to travel 439,000,000 miles.

So, while we all welcome the recent news of GB Energy and Crown Estates’ collaboration to deliver 20-30 GW of additional wind generation by 2030, there’s an opportunity to create significant additional power capacity straight away by making better use of the energy and assets we have already.

And that means a smarter, more tech driven approach to the way we manage energy.  As we face up to the ever-steeper challenge of rapid transition to electric vehicles- and in particular electric HGV fleets- the need for industry change leaders who understand power, becomes clearer and more pressing.

We have both ends of the equation. The power and the demand. Balancing them via an increasingly fragile and overloaded Grid infrastructure will require huge upgrades which are both time and cost prohibitive.  The solution must lie in a decentralised system using DC microgrids.  Highly efficient and strategically placed, these microgrids will relieve pressure on the Grid by managing local power generation in a more flexible and intelligent way to meet local demand.   They are easy to deploy too, having relatively few infrastructural requirements.

The capability and technology to deliver these microgrids exists already in the UK.  In fact, it’s UK-derived. What needs to happen now is a close collaboration with the Government to make them a reality.

This strategy, which involves setting up local power systems ahead of capital-intensive power generation projects to enhance power capacity immediately, while preparing to fully utilize the increased power generation in the future, is genuinely pioneering and an innovative way forward.

It will not only deliver exponential value to consumers in a short time frame, but more broadly will firmly establish the UK as the global leader in electrification. And as the whole world electrifies, that’s a very exciting prospect indeed.

Want to hear more?

* Source. UK Curtailment monitor

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