RenewableUK has just published an interesting report on co-location and the issues and barriers. The whole concept of sharing infrastructure, land and maximising the use of the available grid connection at a time when projects are having to wait a long time for new connections sounds good. The reality is that there are challenges and barriers to this that need to change. A couple of points from me;
-the idea of retrofitting green hydrogen to renewables is not easy because of the whole idea of additionality of renewable electricity for a green hydrogen project. One of the scoring criteria for those hydrogen projects participating in the Government's Allocation Round for hydrogen production price support is evidence that the renewable electricity is from new built assets and it is anticipated that this may harden in the future from a scoring method to a condition.
-RUK reports that only 12% of operational wind and solar projects are currently co-located with battery storage or electrolysers. However, if you speak to our expert renewable property lawyers here they will tell you that we can expect a much larger percentage of projects coming through on the basis of co-location.
A report by RenewableUK has shown that building energy storage projects next to wind farms reduces electricity system costs and boosts energy security.