Energy Management

IMPLEMENTING A POWER RESILIENCE STRATEGY

As with most public sector organisations, councils hold and maintain significant personal information, necessitating a secure and stable power supply to protect and preserve data and servers in the event of energy supply issues and to avoid disruption to vital services.

When South Staffordshire Council wanted to implement a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) system, it called on Powerstar, a leading energy storage and power resilience specialist, to advise on how best to futureproof its energy demands, while working towards net zero.

Here, Alastair Morris, Chief Commercial Officer of Powerstar, outlines the South Staffordshire project requirements and highlights the benefits of a holistic approach to power resilience across public sector organisations.

Alastair explains: “South Staffordshire Council approached us looking to implement UPS to protect their site, critical data and equipment, from the risk of power disruptions. Traditionally, a UPS system has proved an effective solution, so long as the system is properly maintained. However, the council wanted to implement a power resilience strategy that also supported their net-zero goals, including the ability to store power generated from their existing 100kW solar array. As part of their onsite power generation, the council also wanted to bolster their income by introducing a new revenue stream via exporting excess energy to the grid.”

Powerstar’s recommendation was to install a battery energy storage system (BESS), instead of a traditional UPS system, to provide critical power supply during outages while additionally offering significant energy management benefits not available from a traditional UPS.

While, as noted, traditional UPS functions well in many scenarios, to protect IT and data services and equipment in the event of disruption to power supply, it is an option that looks increasingly untenable in a world moving to net zero. Most of the time, a UPS will be sitting idle, but it is still using power and costing money as it switches constantly back and forth from AC to DC – a loss of capacity estimated at between 10 and 15%. For a BESS, the capacity loss is significantly lower, at around 1%. At the heart of a smart microgrid, a BESS provides the security to protect the entire site during power disruptions while bringing significant additional benefits, including those sought by South Staffordshire Council.

Powerstar installed a 250kW BESS, into an existing room on site at the premises, and this now provides full, site-wide UPS, but also enables the council to store excess power from its solar array and to export power to the grid for additional

revenue. The ability to store the energy generated from solar enables the council to manage its export – which is critical to avoid exceeding its agreed export capacity, so eliminating the risk of penalties from National Grid.

As well as facilitating the export and sale of excess power, the new BESS solution is helping the council to futureproof through implementing an energy management strategy focused on resilience. As we move to net zero, this is becoming a higher priority for companies and organisations across the UK, as Alastair notes: “A fundamental aspect of a net-zero policy is, as we all know, a move away from fossil fuels and last year nearly 40% of the UK’s power came from renewables. While this is positive, it brings with it a range of questions organisations should be mindful of, both to preempt supply issues as well as to harness the potential opportunities that a shift to renewables can offer.

“Fossil fuels have generally been a reliable source of energy but as we move closer to fully renewable energy, power generation becomes more inflexible and potentially unstable which, in turn, impacts on the grid. Electricity demands are looking set to double, with electric vehicle charging being a significant aspect. In this instance, the capability to store energy on site may become a vital element for undisrupted workflow and for the protection of digital assets and information,” explains Alastair.

As the UK shifts towards net zero – and non-electric vehicle (EV) car sales are already set to be phased out by 2035 – this move to EVs is a pressing issue, particularly for public sector organisations needing to support their employees and manage their fleets.

Alastair comments: “The need for EV charging is likely to create a major increase in onsite power demands, especially for larger organisations. The required capacity may require an approach to the Distribution Network Operator if the demand takes the organisation over their authorised capacity. Such a request may prove prohibitively expensive or even be blocked altogether. A BESS, as well as providing a vital uninterruptible power supply, can support EV charging through storing renewable energy generated on site and freeing it up for charging when required.”

For South Staffordshire Council, the switch to a BESS and a resilient energy management strategy has been proving beneficial since installation. The system has already protected the council’s site from five blackouts, providing site-wide resilience for 2.5 hours at peak load. This has also allowed the council to remove its carbon-intensive backup generator, while maintaining energy resilience.

In one such outage, a drop in voltage to 0 occurred, a transient power cut at 5:40am on 11th March 2021, for a duration of roughly three minutes. The full load for the site was supported by the new BESS system during this time, preventing any loss of power, keeping all electrical equipment, including IT systems and servers, up and running as normal.

Alastair concludes: “A secure and stable power supply is critical for organisations throughout the UK and, in the current climate, it makes sense more than ever to consider uninterrupted power demands as a part of an overarching energy management strategy, one which ensures resilience while working towards netzero targets.”  www.powerstar.com