Why the UK's Power Grid is Sidelining Clean-Energy Battery Storage

The administrators of Great Britain's power grid admit that they often cannot use energy-storage batteries due to old computer systems and a network with "not enough cables." The system operator claims they are making progress after upgrading their system last December. The company plans to lower the rate at which batteries are sidelined to single figures by early next year. Four leading battery storage groups have criticized National Grid's "electricity system operator" for making the country's power costlier and dirtier by failing to use their technology properly. This results in consumers paying more, clean renewable energy being wasted, and fossil fuel generation being used instead. The U.K. has the world's second-largest offshore wind market, but when the system operator can't send its power where it's needed, it pays wind farms to switch off and gas-fired power plants to turn on, adding hundreds of millions of pounds to energy bills each year. Use of battery storage has soared in places such as California, where batteries soak up solar power during the day and supply a fifth of the state's power in the evening. The company acknowledges that current levels of battery use are "higher than where we want them to be."