Alan Brown – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Brown on 2015-11-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to identify locations for potential electricity storage schemes that would best supplement the existing National Grid system.

Andrea Leadsom

The Department has recently commissioned a study to assess the level of system flexibility (e.g. electricity storage, interconnection, demand side response) that may be required in the future. This study will consider how much and what type of flexibility is both least regrets and optimal for our energy system. This study is expected to conclude in the spring.

In addition, with support from a DECC innovation grant, a UK pumped hydro storage developer has assessed the potential viability of new pumped hydro sites around Great Britain. They concluded that up to 15GW of potential additional pumped storage capacity was available, using various criteria such as the presence of existing or potential reservoirs, grid connection distance and whether the site was in an environmentally sensitive area. Other pumped storage developers have independently identified over 1 GW of additional potential storage capacity.