Long-duration Energy Storage (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to welcome the Minister to the House and I very much look forward to her speech in reply. I thank our team of committee staff for their support, especially Thomas Hornigold and Matthew Manning, not only for the way in which they helped us but for their remarkable intellectual contributions to our work, as well as that of our specialist adviser, Professor Keith Bell. I also thank our chairman for her leadership in the discussions on this subject.

The title of our report rather suggested a narrow topic; in fact, it is a very big one. In the six minutes I have, I want to talk about just one aspect in more detail: the planning for long-duration energy storage and hydrogen as an important long-duration storage technology. It is noticeable that, although both the previous Administration and the Government agree that reserve generation power is going to be necessary to complement the variability of wind and solar power, neither has taken their public statements on LDES policy much beyond 2035—indeed, in the case of the Government, beyond 2030. My problem is that, in a very important area, there seems to be a big hole in potential policy.

As our chairman made clear, the committee did not say that hydrogen should be the sole LDES technology, but we did think that, of the technologies currently available—and there are a number already in use, such as pumped hydropower—it was the technology that was best placed to play a central role in providing the power that we need in the quantities that we are likely to need it. We were explicit about the need for early commitments to a strategic reserve, given the time that it takes, as mentioned by our chairman. Seven years is, I think, not excessive, in which you have to conduct tests, develop appropriate storage conditions and create the associated infrastructure, which is not itself a trivial issue. These are all factors that apply to most potential LDES technologies.

I have to say that I interpret the Government’s decision to build gas plants to provide reserve power as an implicit admission that, notwithstanding international undertakings, clean sources of reserve power will not be available in sufficient quantities by 2030. I very much hope that this decision on gas, despite its considerable expense, is only transitional and that there is a serious intention to have a clean energy source solution for reserve power as soon as possible. Can the Minister confirm this when she responds?

The truth is that early decisions by the Government about reserve power are nothing short of crucial, since without the confidence inspired by a framework of relevant and coherent public policy, it is an illusion to think that the private sector will invest the necessary resources. We really must avoid a repeat of the recent experience of paying exorbitant prices for scarce energy because of a failure to provide indigenous sources, of which we are perfectly capable if only we organise ourselves.

There is a temptation to argue that it is not possible to take big decisions on reserve generation until we know more about the capabilities of different possible technologies and have a better idea of the quantum likely to be needed. These issues are real, but, far from being solved by delay, risk levels are only compounded, and in any case they do not give us the answer to the energy quantity question.

A lot depends on what we assume demand will look like. The energy modellers use different assumptions about the forecasts for future energy supply and demand, which in turn depend, in part at least, on assumptions about weather. The Climate Change Committee bases itself on a typical year of weather, accompanied by stress tests of more extreme weather patterns, whereas the Royal Society, in its study, analysed weather patterns over a longer period, which included years in which there was anomalously low power generation resulting from prolonged periods of low wind speeds—the so-called Dunkelflaute, of which we have heard. Not surprisingly, the Royal Society came up with a bigger estimate for the amount of LDES required than did the Climate Change Committee.

No one said that this was easy. However, I wonder whether anybody has much confidence these days in what constitutes typical weather. What we do know is that weather damage is getting bigger and more expensive by the year. The World Economic Forum recently estimated that, by 2050, the global cost of climate change damage will be between $1.7 trillion and $3.1 trillion a year. With such huge costs at stake, it must be right to act now to ensure that, in turbulent times, at least our power infrastructure is as robust as we can make it and capable of meeting a wide range of weather contingencies. Economic growth and economic security literally hang on it—hence the committee’s entreaty to the Government on long-term energy storage to please get on with it.

What are the advantages of hydrogen for large-scale, longer-term storage? It is available in unlimited quantities through electrolysis and is storable for long periods—that is to say, for months or even years. The UK’s geology makes this a pretty cheap proposition. The power losses involved in conversion to electricity mean that, unless cheap sources of spare energy can be found, such as energy release from a nuclear power station, hydrogen is most economically drawn on as a power source when, for whatever reason, there is a shortfall in the power production of renewables and other sources of energy. I ask the Minister to give us what guidance she can on the nature and timing of government plans for long-duration energy storage at scale.