Learnings

Outcomes

The project findings and recommendations are being considered and disseminated to the wider industry. It is anticipated that a further project will be defined as a result of this work, specifically around understanding the benefits of time of use tariffs and the role of domestic aggregation. This project has also improved our general understanding of the current industry issues associated with electric storage heating achieving the improved TRL on this subject matter from 3 to 5.
As a result of the recommendations from this project, SSEN have purposely included smartly controlled storage heating as part of heat decarbonisation scenarios investigated as part of the NIA_NGSO0033 4D Heat project, which is a new multi-partner project led by National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) and SSEN to explore the potential to use electric heat demand in off-gas areas of Scotland to absorb surplus wind generation, rather than reduce wind farms’ output.
This project will also be used as a case study as part of SSEN’s Heat Strategy which will be published in spring 2021.

Lessons Learnt

The report may have a bearing on the future use of electric storage heating in the UK as the implications of the findings and recommendations have significant influence on the wider industry as we seek a just and fair net zero transition.
Some key features and recommendations from the report for the future vision and use of electric storage heating are:
• Electric storage heating (and even direct-acting electric heating) should be recognised among future policy options for heat decarbonisation, together with whole-house approaches to thermal insulation.
• Investigating time of use tariffs to offer active signalling between the supply chain and the network.
• There should be acknowledgment that future heaters may not look like current storage heaters and the model for their use may require different and more sophisticated demand side functionality more akin to that being considered for smart EV charging to offer the network greater flexibility.
• The role of hot water tanks in all heat electrification scenarios must be considered to understand the disbenefits of removing water tanks as storage resource as it could offer flexibility during intermittent generation.
Energy Networks Innovation Process Project Closedown Report Document
Energy 5 Networks Association
In addition, the learnings from this project can be used to build future projects to understand the specific impacts of flexible heating demand and build safeguards for vulnerable customers when alternative technologies are being considered.
The An Electric Heat Pathway – Looking Beyond Heat Pumps report is available to read here: https://www.ssen.co.uk/InnovationLibrary/Distribution/