National Grid's Ian Welch

25 April 2011 | By Ellie Zolfagharifard

At 11am on 29 April, workers at the National Grid electricity control centre in Berkshire will brace themselves as millions across the UK pull themselves from their sofas, put the kettle on and grab a slice of Victoria sponge, in preparation of watching Prince William and Kate Middleton get married.

Our tradition of switching on the kettle en masse has kept the National Grid on its toes for decades. During certain episodes of EastEnders or Coronation Street, the National Grid experiences what it calls a ’TV pick-up’ of around 3GW equivalent to one-and-a-half million kettles switching on over a period of five minutes. To deal with the strain on our electricity networks, hydroelectric plants, power stations and wind turbines will be on standby to generate energy. At the press of a button, an engineer at the control centre can send thousands of tonnes of water crashing down a hill to a hydroelectric plant hundreds of miles away to help satisfy our country’s eternal thirst for a brew.

As engineers attempt to keep the system frequency at a constant level of 50Hz, there is a perpetual state of anticipation at the control centre. But this is a quality that Ian Welch, research and development manager at the National Grid, believes will help the grid as different forms of energy generation will make the job of engineers at the centre that much harder.

’Wind will probably go up to around 40 per cent of the UK’s energy input in the future,’ he said. ’Nuclear will also be a major contributor, given that there are still likely to be some learning points from what has happened in Fukushima, Japan. Then we’ve got resources such as coal and gas, with carbon capture devices, and interconnection with Europe, so there’s a lot of different systems to consider.’

I don’t think we have got the answers to everything with energy, but that is really why it is so exciting – my role is to perhaps think the unthinkable

Welch’s job is to predict the challenges ahead at the National Grid and come up with technological solutions. An electrical engineer for more than 30 years, he played a key role in the design and commissioning of the 2,000MW cross-channel HVDC interconnector, which imports energy to the UK from France. But it’s the next decade that has really got Welch excited.

’There’s a lot of new investments out there and that was what it was like when I first started my career,’ he said. ’Back then, I was inspired by many of the changes that were happening, with Concorde and men going into space, and technology has now become interesting again. I don’t think we’ve got answers to everything with energy, but that’s really why it’s so exciting. My role is to look a long way into the future and perhaps think the unthinkable sometimes. Here’s what we want to do. How do we get there? Is that possible?’

The intermittency of future energy generation is, however, one issue that keeps Welch up at night. What the country really needs is a large-scale energy storage system to deal with the reliability issues of technologies such as wind and solar. Currently, most energy storage solutions are tackling the 100MW scale. But, according to the National Grid, these solutions need to be 10 times bigger, far more compact, environmentally friendly and able to store energy for days. Compressed air energy storage (see ’Cover feature’, p22) and the UK’s hydro resources are two technologies that Welch highlights as having the potential to do this.

But until these technologies can live up to expectations, the National Grid has been looking to the possibilities that interconnections with other countries can bring. Earlier this month, the company announced that the first electricity connection linking the UK and the Netherlands had gone live. Known as BritNed, the connection provides a 1GW two-way link to the Netherlands around the same amount of energy needed to power a city the size of Bristol.

The UK has become very good at managing both its energy resources and energy demands

BritNed is the first major electricity interconnector in the UK for 20 years. ’The construction of offshore grids is going to facilitate more of these interconnections, certainly to some of the northern European countries, which will be a key part to getting that energy balance,’ said Welch. ’You can almost think of Norway as an energy storage resource anyway because most of its energy comes from hydro. So getting those links are vital.’

As well as its operations in the UK, the National Grid delivers electricity to around 3.3 million customers in the US. Welch believes that the perspective gained from across the Atlantic could help teach some valuable lessons to the UK about the best technologies for future energy generation. But, he adds, the UK has just as much to offer to the rest of the world. ’Maybe it’s because we’re an island with limited interconnections compared with continental countries,’ he said. ’We are a special case a mini Europe in effect and so any volatility in the UK has a much bigger effect than in mainland Europe. Because of that, we’ve become very good at managing our energy resources and demands, and we’re in a good position to move into the future.’

Let’s hope then, for the sake of our evening cuppa, that the National Grid will continue to keep supply and demand in check as the UK’s energy supply undergoes a dramatic overhaul.