How can innovation be used to manage demands on rural energy grids, using the interaction between the agriculture sector and rural communities, providing solutions to accelerate decarbonisation?
The Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs) for Powys and Ceredigion highlight the need for £559 million investment in grid infrastructure across the region, to facilitate the energy transition to net zero. Managing the demand on rural grids in more innovative ways could help to reduce this cost, whilst also having the potential for wider benefits. Agricultural machinery and emissions from land use, which both make up a significant portion of the region's emissions, were not part of the scope of the LAEPS. If agricultural machinery is simply electrified, it will add additional demand on an already constrained electricity grid.
Ceredigion and Powys require substation capacity increase across all zones (51 MW in Powys and 31 MW in Ceredigion), which is likely to take time. Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES) have the potential to provide a more cost-effective and sustainable solution to this problem. In addition, reducing and optimising the demand on rural grid infrastructure may increase the speed at which new renewable energy generation projects can be developed and improve how they are perceived by the local community.
Rural Mid Wales has a strong agricultural community and is an important economic sector with a large number of employees across the region. This challenge provides an opportunity for suppliers to identify innovative and smart solutions that help to decarbonise the agricultural industry as well as the wider region. The wider rural economy may also play a part in the project, for instance decarbonisation of local supply chains; delivering greater benefit to the area.
Growing Mid Wales have been successful in applying to Welsh Government's Whole Systems Research and Innovation in Decarbonisation (WSRID) challenge fund.
We are interested in proposals for innovative solutions that use a whole systems approach to understand the role agriculture, or land-based industry, could play as an enabler to wider decarbonisation across rural communities. The aim is to identify innovation that will help to reduce the scale of grid infrastructure upgrades required across the region, whilst also providing benefits to the surrounding rural communities, the agricultural sector as a whole and the development of renewable energy generation projects.
Innovation may take the form of but is not limited to:
- an agricultural Smart Local Energy System (SLES)
- the use of agricultural by-products to produce an alternative fuel
- community energy schemes
- energy storage (e.g. demand response)
- agrivoltaic renewable energy generation
- or any other innovative solutions.
Challenge Specific Innovation Themes:
· Agriculture and land-based industry
o Machinery, buildings, land, by-products, etc
· Community
o Housing, heating, transport, fuel poverty, etc
· Grid
o Constraints, flexibility, Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES), demand response, etc
· Generation
o Community energy, renewables, etc
Feasibility objectives:
- Provide evidence to manage/reduce demand on grid infrastructure
- Demonstrate scalability, commercialisation and replicability
- Specify pilot projects and their commercially viability
- Outline additional benefits to the community and refer to LAEPs
If you are interested in applying to Growing Mid Wales' challenge: Innovation to Decarbonise Agricultural Communities while Optimising Rural Grids attend our supplier's webinar on the 29th of November at 2pm, email huw.williams2@ceredigion.gov.uk.
There is a £100k budget to procure up to 4 feasibility studies that answer the challenge in an innovative way. The procurement window for WSRID is now open. Register with eTenderWales then use the following link: https://etenderwales.bravosolution.co.uk/go/08701525019363BABE2C The procurement window will be open from midnight on the 25/11/24 and close at midday on the 11/12/24.
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