CABLEtalk

BEAMA – the trade association for electrotechnical manufacturers - is launching a new membership group in January 2016 to complement its already well established work programme for manufacturers of Connected Homes and Smart Grid technologies.  

 

The Building Based Energy Storage Groupisbeing launched to prepare the market for a future energy system that will be increasingly dominated by variable, low carbon energy sources (solar, wind and tidal) requiring a significant degree of energy supply flexibility.  Energy storage will become an important element of the energy infrastructure of the future, right down the energy supply chain, up to and including the building. This will take the shape of discrete and standalone storage technology or products with inherent storage potential e.g. heating and hot water storage and electric vehicles.

 

In announcing the new group, BEAMA CEO Dr Howard Porter said ”The role of energy storage is to support the energy infrastructure as the share of both variable and local generation increases, which will create challenges for balancing supply and demand.Mainstream electro-technical manufacturers are joining specialist niche companies to develop building based offers for storage, which is an exciting prospect for an increasingly decentralised energy system here in the UK.”

 

Speaking from Energy Utility Week in Vienna, Porter added: ”BEAMA is very well placed to take on this challenge and help storage equipment manufacturers deliver propositions for a growing market both in the UK and overseas; the organisation has already taken the Smart Metering, Smart Grid and Connected Homes story to Energy and Utility shows in Aberdeen and Vienna, and in the next six months will be expanding this reach into the Middle East and India.  We see Building Based Energy Storage as a natural extension of our well established expertise in membership representation across many technology sectors that rely on system integration, connectivity and communication protocols.  We have already received lots of positive interest here in Vienna.”

 

Patrick Caiger-Smith, CEO of Green Energy Options has welcomed the move, saying: “Energy storage could be a vital and significant contributor to us getting value from the massive investment future energy networks need. For this potential to be realised we will require changes to be introduced to market structures, regulations and technical standards, and BEAMA has shown itself to be very successful at representing is members in shepherding these types of issues forward in an increasingly complex and integrated business environment.