Rethink Electricity Distribution Without Load Following

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Addressing NWE housing emissions, responsible for approximately 300 million tonnes of CO2/yr, is a key step to reach EU goals of sustainable growth and carbon reduction. RED WoLF will increase renewables' usage and reduce CO2 emission for Homes with PhotoVoltaics without gas connection (PVHs from now on): each of 100 new/existing PVHs, grouped in Pilots provided to RED WoLF by enterprises and Public Authorities (PAs) partners, will be endowed with a Hybrid Storage System (HSS). HSSs will merge batteries and cheap “Storage Heaters” (StHs). StHs provide domestic space heating on demand to individual rooms within 24 hr. HSSs will store houses' PV output and low-CO2 energy (wind/solar) drawn from the Power Grid at times of low demand. This will remove the generation-demand temporal mismatch currently hindering renewables growth: when demand is low on sunny/windy days, output of solar/wind-farms must be reduced. Every year, up to 6% of available wind energy cannot be gathered in NWE, wasting the cleanest Grid electricity. Demand peaks at 120% of the daily average from approximately 6 to 9AM and from 4P to 8PM, when inefficient, CO2-intensive ”load-following” plants are activated to meet demand. PVHs generation is today exported to the Grid regardless of Grid’s needs, which exacerbates the generation-demand temporal mismatch as NWE installed PV capacity grows by 3 GW/yr. The 100 Pilot PVHs will reduce CO2 emissions by 215 tonnes/yr. RED WoLF Pilots will consist of 6 sets of either new-build or renovated PVHs, with HSS installation, in UK, FR and IE. By the project's end, the HSS will be market-ready and will be adopted across the territories in the partnership. HSS will be included in policies and every-day business of RED WoLF partners, and will eventually be rolled out across the whole NWE. A consortium will be founded to facilitate HSS adoption by stakeholders external to RED WoLF.

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