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 assessment her Department has made of the comparative merits of electricity storage and transmission network upgrades.

Andrea Leadsom

The Network Options Assessment (NOA) was introduced as a result of Ofgem’s Integrated Transmission Planning and Regulation project.It is an holistic, forward-looking analysis of the options for the development of the transmission system.The NOA has a 10-year outlook and will be published annually.In developing the annual statement, National Grid as System Operator must work closely with the three GB transmission operators to propose network solutions which facilitate an efficient, coordinated and economical system of electricity transmission. As part of this process, National Grid is required to consider the merits of solutions other than transmission build, such as storage. A cost-benefit analysis of storage compared to other assets is performed by National Grid as a part of this assessment, in which constraint payments form a part.