CENTRICA ENERGY STORAGE: Rough Ready to Bolster Resilience and Reduce Bills

As recently as last July, in the UK a potential scenario of running out of the gas required to power the country has been a very real possibility. Appearing on Sky News, Centrica’s Chief Executive Chris O’Shea laid bare the risks the country faced when it came to ensuring sufficient gas-fired generation to produce the requisite electricity. “We need a lot of technologies to have a resilient electricity system,” O’Shea added.

O’Shea’s message was compounded as the National Grid Electricity Systems Operator (ESO) confirmed it would have no coal-fired power as back-up, if needed, compared to the five contingency units to call on over the course of the previous winter. Gas storage in the UK is “materially behind” Europe, O’Shea commented: while Germany possesses 90 days’ worth of storage, France 123 days and the Netherlands 110, at the time the UK could provide for just 12 days.

This figure did represent, however, a doubling of that of the year before, and served to highlight the critical importance of the resumption of operations at the Centrica-owned and operated Rough natural gas storage facility in the Southern North Sea, capable of storing 100 billion cubic feet of gas. “We restarted storage operations at Rough in 2022 to bolster the UK’s energy security and help reduce consumer bills,” Centrica Energy Storage+ (CES+) outlines, following a period of non-operation from 2017.

ROUGH AIDS RESILIENCE

“Today, Rough provides half of the UK’s gas storage, able to store and provide the equivalent volume of gas to heat 2.4 million homes over winter.” This equates to 54 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas storage, CES+ details, with its long-term aim to turn Rough into the largest long duration energy storage facility in Europe, capable of storing both natural gas and hydrogen.

“Rough can help our energy system by storing natural gas when there is a surplus and producing this gas when the country needs it during cold snaps and peak demand,” O’Shea further explained, keeping prices down for consumers by balancing the UK’s gas market, injecting gas into the facility when there is excess supply and putting that gas back into the UK’s gas network when customers need it most.

“The resilience of the UK’s energy system needs to be substantially improved,” O’Shea declared. “We are delighted to play our part by further expanding the UK’s gas storage capacity. Rough is not a silver bullet for energy security, but it plays a critical role in increasing capacity and supply confidence over the winter months.

“We stand ready to invest £2 billion to repurpose the Rough field into the world’s biggest methane and hydrogen storage facility, bolstering the UK’s energy security, delivering a net zero electricity system by 2035, creating 5,000 skilled jobs and decarbonising the UK’s industrial clusters by 2040.

“This world class North Sea asset has the potential to help the UK economy return to a position of being a net exporter of energy once again.”

NATIONAL SAFETY NET

November’s severe weather and sudden cold snap saw Rough pump its first gas of the winter into the UK transmission system to help manage the resultant energy demand. 4.35 bcf powered up to 3.8m homes on some days, with Centrica also confirming that the fifth of the month saw the site at its fullest since re-opening in 2022.

Analysis by Centrica indicated that the UK’s gas storage this winter is expected to be lower than historically, and with the UK currently going through a period of low renewable generation, Rough will likely have an even bigger impact, particularly given the long storage duration at the site. “I’m proud that Rough was able to provide energy for millions of homes during November,” O’Shea commented of this initial injection.

“There will always be a need to dial up our energy supply when the weather is poor and unpredictable. That’s why it’s so important we get a model that allows us to redevelop and expand Rough into the world’s largest hydrogen storage facility. Rough is a key piece of the UK’s energy resilience, a national safety net, and we have to make sure it can be there for consumers in the years ahead.”

While its recent name change is designed to reflect CES+’s larger ambitions – including onshore and offshore hydrogen production and fuel-switching existing operations to hydrogen – storage remains at the heart of what it does now and its plans well into the future, and a landmark report by Centrica and FTI Consulting, again in November, confirmed the vital role that hydrogen can play in delivering a secure, decarbonised electricity system. It found that a future energy system without an established hydrogen market would leave the UK at risk of huge swings in electricity generation from renewables, with no way of addressing the shortfalls and the surplus making it incredibly difficult to balance the grid.

By providing a means of storing energy over a longer period of time, and transporting energy over a greater distance, hydrogen can address the major intermittency and curtailment issues entitled by renewable generation, in turn helping the UK to continue its great progress towards a 2050 nether target.

“At Centrica we believe wholeheartedly that the UK can reach net zero, but we’re realistic about the challenges the transition will pose,” O’Shea concludes. “What this report clearly demonstrates is the vital importance of hydrogen in decarbonising the UK’s energy system. By providing a way to store excess electricity, hydrogen will be crucial to managing more intermittency.”