The UK’s energy demands are growing. By 2050, energy requirements will have doubled from a 2018 baseline. At the same time, the way we generate and use energy is undergoing radical change. As soon as 2025, Britain could be experiencing periods when 100% of its energy is generated from renewable sources, as we move towards net zero power generation by 2050.
Meanwhile, electric vehicles (EVs) will place new and different demands on the grid. By 2030, the UK Government expects there to be 300,000 public EV charge points – equivalent to almost five times the number of fuel pumps on our roads today.
The convergence of increasing energy requirements; renewable energy generation and EV charging require a different way of thinking. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) play a vital role in supporting this energy shift and are becoming more commonplace on EV charging infrastructure sites. But what are the key benefits that they can bring when deployed together with EV charging:
- Overcoming power constraints
As more vehicles need recharging, depots and workplaces require more power. Many commercial premises do not have the headroom required to add more chargers without a DNO upgrade. Similarly, public EV charging hubs are already drawing down significant amounts of power and may not be able to either add more chargers or increase the number of rapid chargers without upgrading their grid connection. Batteries provide the guarantee of charging supply and support high-power charging to a site that does not have the power that chargers require.
When a site is constrained and requires additional power at certain times of the day, a battery energy storage system can act as a reservoir to supplement the power drawn from the grid. This is especially useful for charging hubs which can experience significant peaks and troughs in demand. Energy storage enables the required functionality whilst ensuring that a business does not breach its supply and connection conditions and incur additional charges.
