Laura Sandys at Energy Systems Catapult says policy makers today are too focussed on rewarding clean energy generation, in other words supplying as much energy as possible. With that comes a focus on reducing the cost of the energy generated. But how about reducing demand? Demand optimisation should be equally rewarded: efficiency, non-generation demand management (even at the household level: think EVs and heat pumps), and any assets that minimises whole system costs and emissions. Sandys describes modelling that has developed new metrics that cost our whole energy system as it gets more complex and interdependent. The guiding principle should be “the cost per additional MW added to the system”. By establishing these metrics, better decisions can be made. The standard LCOE (levelised cost of electricity) used for generation assets is not able to reflect the overall cost and value to the system. The new metrics will enable a new market where optimised demand and optimised supply compete with one another. Sandys ends with three recommendations on how to make that change, and invites others to take this modelling further. It will open the door to new services, new value streams and lower costs appropriate to our new energy world.
- A decarbonised energy system works very differently to a fossil-fuel based one – which is why it demands a new approach to costs.
- A new model must include the value to the system of demand-side assets, such as solar PV and heat pumps.
- Here are three recommendations for policy-makers that can help to drive this necessary change.
We are missing a big trick when it comes to how we decarbonise our energy system. We are trying to squeeze a capital-intensive set of renewable technologies into market and value arrangements, all of which are designed around a commodity-based fossil fuel past.
Until we recognise that the decarbonised system has very different characteristics, a different cost base and new and varied value streams, we will end up paying for an inefficient, under-optimised, much slower and less fair transformation.
LCOE is not measuring the right costs and values
At the heart of the problem is that we are obsessed with the price of the commodity; many investment decisions and analysis are still calibrated using the levelised cost of electricity. In the new world this is far too simplistic, and is becoming less and less representative of the cost and value of our new system.
System optimisation, and decarbonisation
The new system cost base is moving from the cost of the electron to system management, network costs and the amount of storage required. In addition, the very new component that needs to be better understood is the potential and significant value of decarbonisation assets that we will need in our homes and for motoring.
The value of flexibility
The key component that has sat on the sidelines for too long is the true value of flexibility, demand shifting and optimisation, and self supply. While owners of EVs, heat pumps or self-generation can receive some limited benefits from operating them flexibly, this does not reflect the full value of these actions to the wider system. Let us also consider that consumers will need millions and millions of these types of assets across the system to decarbonise – but we are not rewarding them appropriately.
New metrics
This ‘mis-costing’ of the energy system is why ReCosting Energy, inspired by the World Economic Forum’s work on whole system costs, has developed new metrics that aim to appropriately cost our energy system – looking way beyond the value of the electricity itself. Working with the UK Government‘s modelling team, and great teams from Frontier Economics and LCP, we have developed a new set of metrics that use whole system costs, but importantly do what we think is a first: comparing and competing demand-side assets with generation assets.
The model above firstly looks at whole system costs. These criteria were first developed in 2016 by Frontier Economics for DECC (UK Department for Energy and Climate Change) but seem to have not been as widely used by government in making investment decisions as they should.
We then broadened the “normal” analysis – simply comparing different generation assets – by adding demand-side assets and comparing them equally with generation assets. Our ambition here was to show that demand-side assets need to be equally valued to those of generation in our new system.
This revealed several important issues:
1. Levelised cost of electricity is no longer fit as an evaluation tool for the new system
2. It is possible to compare demand-side and generation technologies alongside one another.
3. Most importantly that non-generation, demand-side assets from energy efficiency, EVs and heating actually deliver overall system savings
This model used a simple “the cost per additional MW added to the system” by the various interventions. However, our work aims to stimulate others to take on this modelling framework to start to value all assets – whether demand or generation – equally, providing policy-makers and investors with a much wider range of options.
Our ambition is that these metrics must start to drive change within a policy area that is still dominated by generation considerations, and does not regard demand-side assets as equal.
Three recommendations
Here are three recommendations for making that happen:
1. Demand must be seen as equal to generation in terms of policy and regulatory development.
2. This means that investors in assets which reduce or shift demand (including households deciding how to operate technologies such as heat pumps and EVs) should receive the same benefits from these actions that generation would – because buying these ‘valuable’ assets is as big a financial ask for a family, as developing an offshore wind farm is for an investor.
3. Fundamentally the market changes from ‘supplying’ as much as it can of the commodity to creating a new market in which optimised demand and optimised supply ‘compete’ with one another.
This last point truly unlocks benefits to whole system costs, requires new services for consumers, and drives costs down across both the supply and demand side of the system. It is a new market paradigm fit for the future.
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Laura Sandys is a Non Executive Director at SGN Ltd, and Energy Systems Catapult
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and not the World Economic Forum.
This article is republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License
Reynier Funke says
Good analysis and I do fully agree! However as a consumer when I run my heat pump at night to store heat for the day, I note the efficiency factor falls from 4 to 3, i.e. 25%. In that case the price of the system benefit of the power imported shall also drop 25%, i.e. here in Germany from about 31 to 23 cts/kWh. You are considered a lunatic when you propose this to the grid operator, what I indeed did several times. It also took 25 years for wind power to move from being considered “lunatic” to main stream. it is too bad, we’ll lose again a generation to implement solids which are technically and economically feasible. They will however face huge legal hurdles because lawmakers are geared up and educated to protect their Clients for liabilities not the climate.