Good Energy Group Plc (GOOD) is studying whether it can use battery technology to smooth the volatile generation from sources like wind and solar it uses to supply U.K. customers, according to Chief Executive Officer Juliet Davenport.
“We buy power from four different sources of power, wind power, solar power, biomass and small hydro power, and we balance that currently through the grid,” she said. “What we’re working on is how we balance that long-term; whether battery storage technology is going to play a major part.”
The U.K. could in theory get all its power from renewables in 2050, Davenport said today in a Bloomberg television interview. Good Energy, a utility with 55,000 electricity and gas customers, is working to show how its business model could be spread nationwide, she said.
The level of electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, unlike coal or gas-fired power stations, varies with the weather so technology to store the energy generated until it’s needed by consumers would help expand use of renewables.
AES Corp. said last week it plans a 100-megawatt battery farm in Northern Ireland, the U.K.’s first of that scale. The nation now has about 2,744 megawatts of pumped storage capacity, where water is driven uphill when electricity demand is low and released to drive turbines and generate power when it’s needed, according to Department of Energy and Climate Change data for 2012, the most recent figures. It lists no battery farms.
Good Energy today said net income more than doubled to 2.7 million pounds ($4.5 million) from 1.2 million pounds a year earlier. Revenue rose 43 percent to 40 million pounds, and the company recommended a final dividend of 2.3 pence per share, after already paying out a 1 pence interim dividend.
The company rose as much as 8.9 percent, the most in more than four months, and was up 6.7 percent at 288 pence by 2:47 p.m. in London trading.(source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/good-energy-studies-using-batteries-to-store-clean-power.html)
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