News – Blog
12 July 2023
The UK government’s net zero strategy dictates that we will fully decarbonise our power system by 2035. As we hurtle towards this deadline, several key steps need to be realised: a significant shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources; the electrification of further sectors, such as heat and transport; and upgrades to the grid, so that it can accommodate additional renewable sources and increased overall load.
And things are looking up. 2020 marked the first year in the UK’s history that electricity came predominantly from renewable energy, with 43% of our power coming from a mix of wind, solar, bioenergy and hydroelectric sources. And since then, there has been a dramatic fall in costs of solar and wind energy farms, whilst the price of natural gas has shot up.
But despite these leaps in the renewable energy sector, there are still two clear barriers standing in the way of transitioning our energy system to net zero.
Firstly, renewables are an unpredictable and inflexible source of energy. We can’t control when the wind blows or when the sun shines; we certainly can’t power up renewable sources to respond to increased demand, like when the nation turns its kettles on at half-time.
So, what about building more electricity supply than we need? The more electricity we have, the more room there is for supply to dip, and still not fall below demand.
Well, the Orkney Islands have been producing more renewable electricity than they can use since 2013. Currently, lack of investment in grid infrastructure means they can’t transfer this surplus to the mainland. Instead, money is wasted turning off wind turbines in times of excess supply. Across the UK in 2022, Ofgem spent £215 million turning wind farms off due to bottlenecks in the system.
So, secondly, a lack of investment in grid infrastructure means that renewable energy developers are facing delays of up to fifteen years to connect new capacity to the grid.
Challenge prizes have already been used to develop new technologies to reinvent the grid, in the UK and Canada. We think that a prize awarded to the team that develops a technology or process to harness intermittent renewable energy surpluses would attract a range of approaches and collaborations to achieve an ambitious, specific goal.
What if we challenged innovators to design solutions that would harness intermittent, surpluses of renewable energy so that it didn’t go to waste? Plenty of industries have been borne out of the waste materials of others. And this could encourage investors to support building renewable sources beyond the point of demand, without seeing a fall in returns.
Or, what if we designed a prize that would challenge innovators to decarbonise sites without adding new grid connections? Side-stepping the grid could fast-forward decarbonisation by untethering its progress from the grid reinforcement process. For example: could some combination of autonomous renewable energy generation, thermal & electrical storage technology and heat pumps work to achieve this goal?
Much of the foundational technologies that would enable us to overcome these problems already exist, but a challenge prize would intervene to sharpen innovators’ focus. It also means we can encompass key socio-economic goals, such as achieving affordable solutions and tackling fuel poverty; or key sustainability metrics, such as developing batteries that do not rely on rare earth minerals.
An Unleashing Energy Prize could encompass anything from: thermal storage; to energy intensive processes such as producing green hydrogen and green fertilisers, industrial heat or certain recycling processes; to built-in storage in domestic appliances. Innovators could design anything from a vertical farm, to a kettle, to a recycling plant. A challenge prize model supports new innovators, new collaborations and out-of-the-box thinking.
And, whilst one of the challenges in the energy transition is ensuring momentum and uptake of key enabling technologies, the high profile and public nature of challenge prizes offers an opportunity to raise awareness and for funders to signal their intent to key stakeholders and the wider public.
We think this is a good idea. Do you?
