Legal Perspectives on Innovation in Energy Storage and Trading
What are the most promising advancements in battery technology and how do you see these innovations addressing current challenges in energy storage and scalability?
Whilst, as lawyers, we cannot comment from a technical perspective in the advancements of the technical components, we have seen considerable innovation in the deployment and trading of battery assets. We are seeing increasing co-location opportunities due to grid connection challenges and innovation in the route to market solutions being proposed to deliver increased certainty in revenues to overcome the investor confidence challenge. We see grid connection being a key challenge for the UK BESS market at present, which is a broader sector issue, and consequently as a team we are seeing increasing BESS activity in other jurisdictions.
How are alternative storage solutions positioned to complement or compete with traditional lithium-ion batteries in meeting the growing demands of renewable energy and electric vehicles?
The lithium-ion battery market has certainly kept our Clean Energy team busy in recent years – we have been advising across the sector from EV application through to large scale BESS deployment and optimisation. Looking forward, we are already seeing hydrogen and flow batteries taking on a complimentary role to the more establishing lithium-ion technology, and we anticipate this trajectory continuing. A viable route to market is central to the successful deployment of hydrogen, and we are seeing the transport use case as being particularly successful. The potential of flow batteries in long duration energy storage is well publicised, and the sector support is there.
What role do you see blockchain playing in enabling decentralised grids, and how can it enhance energy trading, storage efficiency and grid resilience in a renewable energy future?
We see blockchain and AI having important applications across the sector, and are supporting a number of clients harnessing these technologies. Ofgem has recognised the increasing importance of AI, with the AI in the Energy Sector guidance consultation having recently opened – we await the outcome after the closing date of February 7, 2025. As a sector, we are already seeing the application of AI to asset management and anticipate seeing more widespread use to grid resilience and maintenance. AI already has an important application in energy trading, and we are pleased to be supporting innovative businesses developing platform-based solutions which rely heavily on AI.
