Bringing greater flexibility to UK energy

At E.ON we support the need to bring more renewables to the UK energy system, but it isn’t simply a question of building wind and solar farms then leaving them to get on with it. We also need upgraded grid infrastructure to transport this new clean electricity from, say, the windy Scottish highlands to the rest of the UK. And, crucially, we need to account for the fluctuations that are normal to renewable generation. 

Renewable technologies represent an incredible advance – The UK now has the ability to generate significant clean energy from the wind and sun – but these sources aren’t constant. The wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine, and, as you’ll know if you’ve ever put faith in the weather report before getting stuck in the rain, we can't always say when they will. 

Nonetheless, there is an enormous supply of clean, sustainable energy to be drawn from these renewable resources,  but with that comes the need to move to a flexible energy system that can continue to provide consistent and reliable electricity to consumers. 

Energy flexibility at all scales 

At the retail end of the energy system where we focus most of our efforts, flexibility will be an essential part of building an efficient and sustainable new energy system, and there are fortunately already a number of technologies available to help us make it easier at different scales: 

Household flexibility 

One way of building more flexibility into the retail energy market is by encouraging consumers to become flexsumers. This means that in addition to using electricity, customers might also have the means to produce, store, and share it. 

Among the key technologies enabling this kind of flexibility are smart meters, which in combination with time-of-use tariffs can help customers to buy and use more electricity at lower prices when supply is high, saving them money. 

We’re already part of the effort to put a smart meter in every British home, but there are also significant benefits to combining them with domestic battery storage. By putting batteries in households, people can not only buy and use renewable power when it’s abundant and cheaper, but also store and even sell it. That’s the thinking behind our ongoing pilot in Coventry, where we’re installing batteries in people’s properties at no upfront cost to provide long-term savings and help balance the grid through greater flexibility. 

Large-scale flexibility 

Domestic batteries can enable flexibility at a household scale, but we are also going to need larger, long-duration storage solutions to ensure the kind of flexibility the UK needs for a successful energy transition. 

By building the capacity to store large amounts of sustainably generated electricity for longer periods of time at strategic locations around the country, we can make sure there’s a reliable backup power supply and a readily deployed source of electricity to balance supply with demand when needed. Both of these are essential to maintaining energy security as we progress towards net zero, which is why we’re investing in long-duration projects such as two 230-megawatt battery storage facilities at the site of the former Uskmouth coal-fired power station in Newport, South Wales, building flexibility for the years to come. 

Industrial flexibility 

The green transition is largely focused around electrification, but in some industrial processes electricity is not always the most effective form of energy. In steel production, for example, it’s relatively inefficient and expensive to substitute electricity for fossil fuels as a way of generating the extreme temperatures required, but developing technologies are helping us find new, flexible solutions to these challenges. 

By using electrolysis to create green hydrogen with sustainably produced electricity, we can provide the steel industry with an energy source capable of generating extremely high temperatures without the accompanying carbon emissions of fossil fuels. That’s precisely what we’ve been working towards at Blackburn Meadows in Sheffield, where in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, Chesterfield Special Cylinders, Glass Futures, and Forgemasters Steel we’ve recently completed the government-funded Hydrogen Decarbonisation of Sheffield Steel (HYDESS) project, and hope to support clean, hydrogen-fuelled steel production in the years to come.  

Flexibility for the future 

The UK already has an arsenal of technologies available to make the energy system more flexible at both small and large scales, but we need investment, effective regulation, and new ways of thinking to integrate that flexibility fully. 

A regulatory emphasis not just on installing smart meters but making sure they work, government grants and guarantees for green financing initiatives, increased investment in research around alternative fuels and storage, and more innovative, flexible energy products could all help prepare the energy system for net zero. 

While these and other efforts ramp up, we’ll continue to innovate with projects like our battery pilot in Coventry, invest in large-scale, long-duration storage as in Uskmouth, and lead the way on decarbonising crucial industries as in Sheffield, because it’s on us to make new energy work. 

Follow these links to learn more about: 

Our Coventry battery pilot 

Long-duration storage in Uskmouth 

Hydrogen at Blackburn Meadows