Chinese CAES Investment
Although Chinese CAES is of significantly inferior performance to ours, the country evidently sees adiabatic CAES as being a substantial part of the energy transition.
In May 2022, China opened a 60MW, 300MWh adiabatic CAES pilot plant in Jiangsu, near Shanghai. This is the first CAES plant at such scale since McIntosh, Alabama, opened in 1991, and only the third ever. It claims round trip efficiency “more than 60%”, though as it doesn’t specify how that is measured, one must presume that it is measured terminal-to-terminal rather than grid-to-grid, which would therefore carry a 3-5% penalty for the power conversion.
They are following this with a 350MW, 1.4GWh adiabatic CAES plant in Shangdong using molten salt thermal storage. This targets 65% efficiency which probably equates to 60-62% grid-to-grid, compared with our 68-70%. The first two phases alone (which are not defined) cost $311m. China also has numerous other projects in the planning stage.
Storelectric on Sky
Storelectric will be featured in Sky Channel 181 broadcast ‘‘Renewable Energy Powering Businesses” (part of the Responsible Business: A Green (Sustainable) Approach series) on Sundays 13th November and 18th December, both 10:30am.
Storelectric in the Media
Mark’s analysis of the Challenges of the Energy Transition has been published on Energy Central. It would help us raise our profile if you could view and comment positively on the article; Mark would be happy to answer questions too, in the comments.
Another article was published on Innovation News Network on 28th September, showing how our solutions are important to the energy transition (the headline is theirs, not ours), which has received almost 3,000 views averaging over seven minutes each. Again, please view, like, re-tweet, comment etc.:
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Mark was also a panellist at Solar and Storage Live, one of the three “Latest and the Greatest Solar & Storage Technologies that Should be on your Radar”, talking about Storelectric’s grid-scale electricity storage and hydrogen offerings.
Revolving Doors at BEIS
Grant Shapps is now Business Secretary, i.e. Secretary of State for BEIS, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He has not taken a position on climate change but has previously spoken in favour of the energy transition, which is positive in comparison with Jacob Rees-Mogg who is a climate-change sceptic. Nonetheless, it must be said that JRM did no significant harm during his brief tenure.
We look forward to working with him and his team on delivering an affordable, reliable and resilient energy transition that develops Britain’s business and export capabilities and opportunities.
Graham Stuart is Minister of State for Climate. He is a positive appointment but this portfolio is no longer in the cabinet, demoting the subject in governing circles.
Lord Callanan remains, at least for the time being, Minister for Business, Energy and Corporate Responsibility, but this hasn’t yet been announced. He is also the BEIS lead in the Lords.
Chris Skidmore is continuing his review of the economic opportunities of Net Zero. This was a positive action started by the last regime.
Our new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has unfortunately declined to attend COP28, which fits in with him demoting climate change from cabinet; he may also in future re-split BEIS into DECC (energy and climate change) and BIS (business). This government also contains many ministers who oppose onshore wind.
In summary, this recent reshuffle is a mixed bag but better for the climate change and net-zero energy transition agendas than the last lot.
Revenue Cap for Energy Companies
The proposed revenue cap for energy companies appears to be carefully designed to differ from Labour’s company surtax proposals, rather than for practicality, ease of administration, comprehensive coverage, fairness or remunerative capacity. An energy company surtax would be better on all those factors.
