In a move aimed to tackle the challenges of a low carbon energy infrastructure, six new UK electricity network projects will compete for £64 million of low carbon innovation funding, it was announced yesterday by energy regulator Ofgem.
The projects are part of the second round of
Ofgem's £500 million
Low Carbon Networks (LCN) Fund.
Five of Britain’s six electricity distribution network operators (DNOs) submitted six project ideas that aim to ease consumers’ and energy networks’ transitions into a low carbon economy. The LCN Fund, which encourages this creation and exchange of ideas, was set up as part of the 2010-2015 electricity distribution price control in 2009.
"Today’s announcement builds on the success of last year’s competition," Stuart Cook, Ofgem’s senior partner for Smarter Grids and Governance, said. "The six projects which will go through to the final stages of the competition demonstrate a real appetite for
innovation and tackling the issues that the networks face as we prepare to meet the challenges of a low carbon economy."
The six projects, ranging from smart metering and smart appliances to connecting renewable generation and increasing capacity on generators, are now in the final submission stage to compete for a portion of this year’s funds. Lessons learned from LCN Fund projects will be shared across the industry, Ofgem said.
IEA report
The competition announcement follows the release of an encouraging new piece of literature from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 'Harnessing Variable
Renewables: a Guide to the Balancing Challenge'. The book, which analyses case studies from eight geographic regions with differing power attributes, presents the idea that there is more potential for balancing variable renewable energy output than is generally thought possible.
The report claims that the flexibility of the power system at hand is a key determinant as to its success in integrating alternative energies and concludes that the UK could in fact balance large shares of variable renewable energy.
LCN Fund
Many of the projects competing for the LCN Fund follow this model of flexibility, such as UK Power Networks’ 'Flexible Plug and Play’ project, which focuses on how to convert an existing
network to connect more renewable generation.
The other DNOs competing in this round of funding are Western Power Distribution, SSE, Electricity North West and Scottish Power.
In last years round of LCN funding, four DNOs shared £63.6 million for projects that took place in London, North East England, East Lincolnshire and South Wales. According to Ofgem, the LCN initiative includes sharing knowledge that is gained from its projects – in accordance with this goal, Ofgem plans to hold a conference concerning last year’s projects in July.
The new projects will submit finalised proposals in September. Ofgem’s final selections will be made towards the end of November.
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