Ed Miliband eyes battery bonanza to cut wind farm costs
GB Energy, which is backed by the taxpayer, will use a chunk of its newly minted budget to invest in energy storage systems as households and businesses are forced to foot the bill to prevent the creaking power grid from getting congested.
More than £700m has been spent so far this year on switching off wind farms to avoid overloading the grid as well as firing up alternatives to keep the lights on. This is up from about £450m over the same period in 2024, with the money ultimately coming from energy bills.
Officials are also keen to ensure clean power remains reliable during periods of high demand.
An industry source said: 'How do you get around the fact that the wind blows one day, doesn't blow the next? They have to keep switching off the turbines because they can't store the energy. GB Energy think they've got a role to play in trying to fund the innovation.'
The Energy Secretary is presiding over the drive as part of a £4bn push by GB Energy into emerging technologies.
The push into battery storage technology is understood to be one of GB Energy's three big priorities, with half its £4bn innovation budget being deployed to bring more of the UK's net zero supply chain onshore.
The Government is hoping to create hundreds of new jobs in areas such as Scarborough, North Yorkshire, which is reinventing itself as a service hub for the offshore wind industry.
Experts say large amounts of energy storage will be needed for net zero, as countries move away from readily dispatchable gas or coal-fired power stations to intermittent sources such as wind and solar farms.
More storage on the grid should also help to prevent situations where grid operators are forced to pay wind farms to switch off when the network is too busy to accept their power.
Instead, battery operators would be able to snap the electricity up cheaply and store it for later.
There is particular need for so-called long-duration storage that can be deployed over weeks rather than days to counter periods of 'dunkelflaute', when cloudy skies and stagnant wind conditions reduce the output of renewables.
Under Mr Miliband's plan for a clean power system by 2030, the amount of long-duration energy storage is expected to rise from about three gigawatts today to between four and six gigawatts – enough to power millions of homes.
Traditional lithium ion batteries are not ideal for this owing to their high cost and relatively short-term output, as well as degradation over time and the large numbers that would need to be built.
Possible alternatives include 'flow' batteries, which store energy in liquid electrolytes, pumped hydro storage, compressed air storage, heat storage such as thermal bricks or molten salt, and caves that can be used to store hydrogen.
The push into battery storage technology comes after Mr Miliband abandoned controversial plans to charge southern households more for electricity than those in the North amid a backlash from wind farm owners.
Advocates claimed that zonal pricing would also have cut bills for all households overall by removing the need for £27bn of grid upgrades and axing the payments made to wind farms to switch off.
Wind turbines have been built faster than grid capacity over the past decade, leaving Britain's infrastructure struggling to move electricity from Scottish wind farms to where it is needed in the South.
A spokesman for GB Energy said: 'Long-duration energy storage is vital to a clean, secure, and affordable energy future for the UK.
'GB Energy sees opportunity to invest in both proven technologies like pumped hydro and emerging innovations such as flow batteries and liquid air storage. By stepping in early, we can unlock private capital, accelerate delivery, and back British supply chains.'
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