UK developers of solar projects could benefit from thinking more proactively about the ‘ready-to-repower’ phase of their projects, according to Joe Miletic, founder and director of consultancy Solclaris.
He discussed the idea behind this sentence during Solar Media’s Clean Power 2030 Summit earlier this monthon a panel discussion on how best to manage assets that have reached the end of the Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) program. Introduced in the early 2000s, the ROC program has been a major driver of new UK energy generation projects, with figures from Energy UK showing that project support under the program provides almost a third of the UK’s current energy supply.
However, the support offered under the ROC program was limited to 20 years, meaning that an increasing number of clean energy projects will lose access to this support program in the coming years. Around 5.1 GW of renewable capacity is expected to lose ROC support next year, and a total of 25 GW is expected to lose support by 2037, meaning there is currently strong demand for more comprehensive end-of-life planning for solar energy in Britain.
Miletic told our colleagues at PV Tech Premium that reaching this repower-ready stage of development means reaching a stage where developers are “ready to answer the question of what happens next to that asset,” and there could be a range of options including repowering, renewal, the addition of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and complete decommissioning of projects.
But the responsibility for reaching the stage of readiness for renewed power does not lie solely with asset owners. As Miletic tells Solar energy portalEquipment manufacturers, project developers, and policy makers have historically “broadly aligned project design lives and historical support periods,” to make project approval, implementation, and end-of-life as simple as possible.
However, he says project developers would appreciate greater policy flexibility, especially those who rely on government support schemes, such as the ROC program or the CfD rounds, to make their projects financially viable.
“It would be good to have, within reason, a framework that gives existing end-of-life asset owners some incentive to avoid complete waste,” he says. Solar energy portalsuggesting that the total dismantling of a project is a worst-case scenario that should be avoided.
He says this framework could include clauses that allow project developers to add batteries to a solar project, or make changes to the design or layout of a project, to ensure it can continue to operate in a financially viable way, without the years-long processes of applying for planning permission or applying for a CfD round to which new projects are subject.
“The policy direction at EU level is currently a bit more explicit,” he continues. “There is a bit more direction on repowering and co-located storage, especially in terms of licensing. I’m not sure how that will happen in every country – there are certainly some differences – but it’s a topic that has progressed a bit. Hopefully that will be on the agenda in the UK in the coming years.”
Reaching the stage of development that’s ready to be repowered means reaching a stage where developers are “ready to answer the question of what happens next with that asset,” Miletic says. Image: Solclaris.
Tackling grid queuing in the re-enablement readiness phase
Greater policy support for reaching the ‘ready to repower’ stage would be particularly welcome in Britain, where a lack of available network capacity continues to loom over the country’s energy mix.
While the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has awarded A strong grid connection provides more than half of the sustainable energy projects that need to come online in 2030there was more than 100 GW of solar capacity in the planning phase since last yearreflecting the sheer size of the projects looking to come online, all vying for access to the grid.
Miletic says the need for developers to “focus on their position in the queue and connection timelines” has made the project development process increasingly complex, requiring everything to be reconsidered again at the end of a project’s life; If an asset owner chooses to power a project and increase its total generating capacity, will the electrical grid be able to accommodate that additional power? Or does the asset owner have to request a new grid connection again?
One solution often touted to address grid connectivity issues is the co-location of solar and BESS, but from a planning perspective, the addition of a second renewable energy technology adds further complexity to the ‘grid studies’, Miletic said.
“If you put a battery in the same place, it’s not just an additional system for your project, it’s a different technology [so] there is interaction between the systems, and especially at the connection point, [which] can affect the grid studies that need to be carried out,” he says. “In the context of repowering, this is clearly an issue: if a project needs to be completely repowered, the question arises ‘is this the right time to add a battery?’ is a very good question to ask.”
