The UK's Renewable Energy Association (REA) has launched two new trade groups to represent the storage and solar industries respectively.
The groups, UK Solar and UK Energy Storage will begin work immediately with the REA’s existing members.
“Solar power is one of the first major renewable energy technologies set to compete with traditional energy sources without subsidy,” said Dr Nina Skorupska, chief executive, REA. “The integration of solar as a major player in the UK energy mix will transform the power market. Businesses, households and the public sector will see their energy bills reduced. It is the mission of UK Solar to support and drive the transition to this solar future,” she said.
While less developed than the solar industry, the REA said energy storage offered huge potential to stabilise the country’s energy system during its decarbonisaton.
“The potential for energy storage to transform the UK energy mix is immense,” said Ray Noble, senior advisor, REA. “Through representing all types and scale storage technologies the REA will drive the commercialisation of viable storage solutions in the UK. The integration of storage technologies will bring down costs and increase the capacity of renewable energy available on demand, which could revolutionise the energy mix,” said Noble.
The UK has seen a number of product launches for solar plus storage at the residential scale around the period leading up to Christmas and well into the first quarter of this year. In addition to a few pilot schemes for residential and bigger scales of storage, grid-scale storage in the UK meanwhile is currently being tried and tested for the most part through the Low Carbon Network Fund (LCNF). This is a means for distribution network operators (DNOs) to bid for funding through the national energy regulator, Ofgem, for storage projects on the proviso that knowledge and data from projects is shared with the rest of the LCNF. This has included the recent commissioning of 'Europe's largest' grid storage battery.
Dr Nina Skorupska, the REA's chief executive. Image: REA.