Battery companies claim UK utility National Grid skips their sites for gas peaker plants over 90% of time

The chief executives of four energy storage companies with battery assets in the United Kingdom have accused UK electricity system operator (ESO) National Grid of “skipping” their sites up to 90% of the time.

The bosses of Zenobe, Field Energy, Harmony Energy, and Eelpower signed a letter which stated, “Our own data – verified by the ESO – shows that batteries are being skipped over 90% of the time during constraint periods for some sites. The consequences are clear. Consumers are paying more, clean renewable energy is being wasted, and fossil fuel generation is being used instead.”

The battery companies claim the cost of constraining excess wind power generation, and of paying gas peaker grid-backup sites instead, could run to more than £2 billion ($2.64 billion) per year by 2030.

UK national newspaper the “Financial Times” (FT) reported National Grid ESO spokesperson Craig Dyke accepted the criticism and blamed ageing computer systems and grid network infrastructure, including a lack of sufficient cables to get electricity where it needs to be.

Dyke told the newspaper a computer system upgrade at National Grid, in December 2023, had brought the skipping rate for batteries down to 30%, apparently without stating what level it had previously been at, and said further upgrades would enable National Grid ESO to bring the rate down to “single figures” in “early” 2025.

The ESO representative told the “FT” the computer systems currently in place make it difficult for National Grid staff to be able to determine whether batteries have enough charge when called upon to supply extra power to the electricity network.

Dyke reportedly added, some constraint is inevitable because batteries are not always near enough to where the power is needed and he claimed the 90% figure quoted by the battery companies related to one battery on one day.

In its open letter, addressed to the UK government, the battery company chief executives wrote, “Investment in batteries does not need money from the government. But it does require a market that works properly … As a coalition, we are ready to work together with the Government, the ESO, and [energy regulator] Ofgem to fix this long-standing issue. By reducing the skipping of batteries, we can cut consumer bills while giving investors the confidence to invest in the UK’s energy transformation.”