By James Basden, Co Founder Zenobē 

The Labour government’s announcement of an innovative partnership between Great British Energy and The Crown Estate shows the strong intent the party has on making Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030.

While this bold move is welcome, Labour cannot focus solely on renewable energy production to meet their ambitious target. The government needs the power and flexibility of battery storage to get anywhere close. It’s time to recognise grid-scale batteries as critical national infrastructure.

By 2030, the government wants to double delivery of onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind. According to Modo Energy, this would result in 140GW of renewable energy generation by 2030, 43% more than current forecasts.

But more renewable power needs more storage. In 2023 alone, over £569 million worth of wind energy was wasted due to wind farms being turned off when there was too much power being generated, with fossil fuels being used as a backup.

The good news for Labour’s 2030 target and for bill payers is that the UK is already on track to expand the current 4.7GW it has of battery storage. The Electricity System Operator’s (ESO) own Future Energy Scenarios estimate that GB will need at least 29GW of battery storage to reach net zero by 2050.

Zenobē and other storage operators are ready to reduce this waste of cheap, clean power, ensuring excess energy on windy and sunny days is captured and released back onto the grid when supply is low.

Zenobē’s own 1.32GW/2.57GWh pipeline of batteries in Scotland – enough to power every Scottish household for over two hours – is forecast to lower consumers bills by over £1 billion over 15 years. Furthermore, the one million tonnes of carbon savings from these batteries are equivalent to removing the car emissions of Glasgow and Edinburgh combined.

Replicated nationally, these potential savings are significant. In fact, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero estimates that deploying 20GW of electricity storage could save the public up to £24 billion by 2050.

Unlike other technologies, batteries do not need Government subsidies or radical market reform. Current market structures are providing enough revenue for operators to develop projects – the sector isn’t asking for more public money.

Common sense fixes to accelerate deployment

But there are clear issues holding back this ambitious pipeline that the new Government can solve:

• First, the grid connections queue needs proper reform. The government must remove unviable ‘zombie’ projects that don’t have any chance of being built. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero can end the ongoing cycle of legal challenges with firm action. This needs to be in addition to planning reforms needed to prioritise this critical national infrastructure.
• Second, the System Operator consistently fails to use batteries – even when they are the best economic and technical solution – for reasons they themselves cannot explain. Instead, the ESO must prioritise the dispatch of new, reliable and clean technologies and provide the transparency necessary to ensure there are no more “skip” events. This must stop now to prevent consumers paying unnecessary costs and the ongoing damage to the environment.
• Third, after so much change, investors need certainty to spend the many billions needed to deliver the 2030 target. Fundamental market changes will halt investment, take decades to implement and stop delivery of the many beneficial changes which we can implement now.

With these common-sense actions, Britain can unlock private investment to decarbonise the grid, lower bills and end our exposure to volatile international gas markets.

Zenobē – and the entire battery sector – is ready to build and support Government ambitions for our energy system and the 2030 target is within our grasp.