Solar generation records in the UK have continually hit new highs this year thanks to unseasonable sunny spells and at the end of last week, the bar was raised yet again when solar was responsible for generating 8.7 GW of electricity in the early afternoon on Friday 26th May. This exceeded the 8.48 GW high previously reached two weeks earlier on the 10th May.
Thanks to a Spanish plume, the UK saw temperatures as high as 28 degrees celcius with long sunny spells helping solar power provide almost a quarter of the UK’s electricity demand around 1pm on that particular afternoon. Combined with other forms of generation, the total power generated by low carbon measures was around 60% of total demand; a glimpse of what could happen more consistently in the future with Government support.
Solar has come a long way since the low deployment levels just seven years ago to almost 12 GW that we see today. Generating solar is one thing, however, businesses can also be more forward thinking by looking in to other complimentary technologies such as battery storage to ensure they capture and use more of what they generate instead of exporting back in to the grid during periods of low demand.
As solar continues to be deployed across the UK, it is inevitable that new records will continue to made and particularly during hot sunny periods as above, the demand from the Grid to offload some of the power exported to their energy network may interest businesses to provide these ‘frequency balancing’ services through battery storage.