Reply from M.P27 May 2021 16:09
Thank you for your email dated 28 April, enclosing correspondence from your constituent, Mr **** regarding battery storage. Mr **** also wrote to Lord Callanan on 5 May to raise his concerns, I am replying as this matter falls within my Ministerial portfolio.
As Mr ****** outlined, flexibility from technologies such as storage will be essential for achieving the transition to a low carbon energy system. Flexibility is the ability to shift, in time or location, energy consumption or generation to balance supply and demand. It enables the integration of high volumes of low carbon power, heat, and transport.
Deploying smart and flexible technologies such as electricity storage, demand side response and interconnection could save up to £12 billion per year by 2050. Storage provides flexibility to the system by maximising the use of intermittent renewables, providing a wide range of balancing services to the grid and alleviating constraints, helping to defer or avoid the need for costly network build.
There are a range of technologies that can provide electricity storage, some examples include: different types of battery storage, pumped hydro storage, and liquid and compressed air storage. We are facilitating the deployment of electricity storage technologies, and other forms of flexibility through actions to remove barriers, reform markets and invest in innovation as set out in the 2017 BEIS and Ofgem Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan - enabling them to enter the market and compete fairly alongside other new or established energy solutions.
When installed, maintained, and decommissioned correctly, electricity storage (including Lithium-ion batteries) poses minimal health and safety risks. However, it is vital to ensure that any risks are carefully mitigated. In 2018, my Department established an independent, industry-led?health?and safety?governance group for electricity storage,?responsible for ensuring that an appropriate, robust, and future-proofed?health?and safety framework is sustained?as the industry develops and storage deployment increases. Following a recommendation from this group, in 2020 BEIS procured a gap analysis to understand any possible gaps in the standards landscape and recommendations for how these can be addressed. We are now working with the health and safety governance group to consider these recommendations and understand whether and how they should be
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