Gas and Electricity Transmission Infrastructure Outlook (partner)

he interaction between gas and electricity energy systems is likely to increase as we progress towards Net Zero. Transportation systems in the UK and surrounding countries, across transmission and distribution will need to interact in order to balance energy production and use.  The potential solutions for the decarbonisation of transport, heat, industry and power also interact and compete with several that have the opportunity to overlap. This project is a first step in understanding these interactions for the UK transmission networks.  Thinking on whole energy has increasing relevance for operation and development of the gas and electricity transmission systems as we progress towards net zero and is a vital activity at this stage of our transition.

Benefits

The results of the project will create knowledge in the transmission approach to whole systems that can be utilised as appropriate by UK networks to determine future strategies and approaches.  It may also benefit interconnecting networks and systems.  The aligned collaborative approach will enable a more efficient transition to net zero.

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Outcomes

The project has shown that:

• In all net-zero scenarios, integrated infrastructure planning across electricity and hydrogen transmission can provide energy system savings up to £38 billion by 2050, which will be supported by no regret network investments, common across all scenarios, over the next decade.
•  Introducing green hydrogen electrolysis into the energy mix reduces renewable generation curtailment from 26% down to 1% by 2050.
•  Maximising renewable generation on the system is key to meeting UK net-zero ambitions. This requires an increase in the importance of dispatchable peak supply with up to 32 GW of hydrogen turbines and a similar magnitude of demand-side flexibility resources.
• Hydrogen storage plays a key role in all net-zero scenarios during low-wind periods by providing nonintermittent hydrogen supply to support both gas and electricity systems when green hydrogen production is limited.

The project provided an evidence-based view of the evolution of a mix of different technologies that would help GB achieve its net-zero target in the most cost-effective way in terms of future infrastructure development (to 2050) across different FES (net-zero compliant) scenarios. The project also highlighted the importance of long-term whole systems planning and the role of stakeholders in realising its benefits and provided a robust demand regionalisation methodology that could be applied to future whole systems projects.

More importantly, the project stimulated more collaboration and fruitful dialogue among Gas Transmission, Electricity Transmission and Electricity System Operator, and promoted communication with BEIS, Ofgem and other networks in the context of future whole system planning. These may be further accelerated if future innovation project ideas identified in this project (see Section 6) materialise.

Lessons Learnt

The project applied a regional and whole-systems lens to gas and electricity network infrastructure modelling in a way that has not been applied previously, which may open up opportunities for further work in the future. It also encouraged more dialogue among stakeholders (NGT, NGET, ESO, BEIS, Ofgem, and other networks) through a series of result workshops, stakeholder briefings and a virtual stakeholder event attended by 70+ stakeholders. As part of this project, several potential innovation project ideas have been identified. These ideas have been grouped into themes that are shown below:

• Integrated whole system studies
• Whole system / hydrogen focused studies
• Whole system / power focused studies
• Future System Operator focused studies
• Public-sector focused studies

The themes listed above may provide opportunities for further collaboration among gas and electricity network companies, in future (innovation) studies.

The agreements over the content of the final report between ESO, NGET and NGT took more time than anticipated.  The learning is that each network has differing views of the future energy vector mix and more time to find compromises is needed in future collaborative projects.