UK Power Networks (UKPN) has revealed the “enormous potential” that using long-stay car parks offers to help power the grid.
Describing them as a potential “sleeping giant” of the energy transition, long-stay car parks offer increased benefits over shorter term solutions, such as hotels or supermarkets. For example, in the case of an airport, a customers’ flight dates dictate the precise length of a vehicle’s stay. This hands network operators with far greater insight into the spare power or capacity they will have at their disposal at any one time.
UKPN has been exploring this potential through its Park and Flex study, with early results showing that over 1.3mn homes could be powered by filling up electric cars’ batteries in long-stay car parks when energy is cheap and demand is low, before then injecting it back into the system at peak times.
Uncovering 4.3GW of flexible electricity demand, UKPN highlighted how this can play a huge role in helping London, the east and south east of England – the areas it serves – to make an efficient transition over to a low carbon economy. Through to 2050, up to £1.3bn in flexible energy savings could be made should this approach be rolled out across the 140,000 or so long-stay parking spaces across the south and east of England.
Next steps will involve understanding just how this vision of using long-stay car parks to power the grid could be rolled out nationally, as well as the customer incentives that would be needed to make it happen.
