A full, detailed version of this section can be found in the 2021 FES document:
FES 2021 interactive document
FES 2021 print ready document
Key insights
Electricity system flexibility
In future the electricity system will be supply-led. Demand will adjust to use or store energy from variable renewable generation. Solutions will include electrolysis, interconnection, demand-side response and storage, particularly in the two to four hour range.
As electrification of the economy increases across all scenarios, flexibility becomes increasingly important to help manage peak electricity demands and reduce the need for additional electricity generation capacity.
Appropriate price signals and incentives will be needed from the energy market and from policy to encourage the types of flexible demand-side response behaviour that a net zero world requires from consumers.
Whole energy system flexibility
The flexibility provided today by the gas transmission system will significantly reduce in Leading the Way and Consumer Transformation in 2050. These scenarios will need significantly more flexibility from consumers.
Large-scale interseasonal energy storage is essential to meeting net zero, our net zero scenarios use hydrogen to meet this need. No sites currently exist, so the right policy and economic incentives for investment need to happen to bring this forward.
Where are we now?
Electricity system flexibility
Electricity system flexibility today is predominantly delivered on the supply side. As demand varies through the day, different sources of electricity are brought online. Some like nuclear operate more as ‘baseload’ generation, running constantly, other than for periods of maintenance, while others such as natural gas turbines are more flexible.
Gas system flexibility
The gas system delivers most of today’s flexibility through the ability to vary upstream gas production, connected storage sites and linepack (the amount of gas in the network at any given time). Storage capacity for gas is substantially higher than for electricity. At the end of 2020 there was approximately 15,000 GWh of gas in storage, and a minimum 3,800 GWh of linepack in the gas network; there is less than 30 GWh of electricity storage capacity, of which 96% is from pumped hydro storage sites, with around 4% from other forms like batteries.