UK Electricity Generation Map

Why is there a battery category? That does not seem to fit with electricity GENERATION but I may be missing something.

Generation might be a slight misnomer, but it's conceptually the same as pumped storage - grid capacity that can be called upon as necessary.

Generation in this instance means power generation to meet consumption demand. Typically withdrawals from storage are counted as a source of supply to meet that demand regardless of the original source of the power in storage.

A battery is a form generation. Ideally it soaks up power when not being used and then releases at peaks.

So either the solar, wind, etc. datapoints are not being stored or they are double counting. It seems very unlikely all these solar, wind, etc. generators are not storing energy.

I think you're right. I think its more like you say - grid capacity that can be called upon as necessary. Which is often from generators but not necessarily.

The "interconnectors" are more evidence this isn't really about generators, but grid entry points. The interconnectors are connections to the French, Danish, etc. grids.

It depends on what you're thinking of. No, the solar panels on my roof have no battery on the property. The wind turbines will have inertia, but no other store. I doubt the majority of the solar panel farms have batteries.

Im thinking of generation

A battery is a source of electricity. I think being a source is being conflated with being a generator. A battery does not generate electricity. It stores it.

You asked a question I tried to give you a reply. Most of the industry will classify it as a virtual generator. Happy to argue but not sure why you post a question and then refute answers.

There is both a load and generator resource for a battery and is some markets it will register as such. So no it’s not creating net new but will often but bucketed in a generator category for the purposes of looking at mix.

It's an input to the grid. They will also be an output.

Im refuting the idea that a battery is a generator. Because its not for the reason I already differentiated.

Yeah input would be a better label I think.

You’re right that in the strict physics sense a battery doesn’t generate anything new. But in energy markets and system ops, classification is less about first principles and more about how resources interact with the grid. That’s why most ISOs/TSOs register a battery as both a load and a generator, it consumes on charge and supplies on discharge.

So when people talk about the “generation mix,” batteries get bucketed alongside gas, wind, solar, etc. Not because they magically create energy, but because from the grid operator’s perspective they look like a dispatchable generator when discharging.

It’s one of those cases where common-sense semantics (“it’s storage”) diverge from industry practice (“it’s modeled as generation”).

Please let me know what’s confusing.

This is correct. What's important for industry is understanding the energy balance, i.e. entries and exits to and from the grid. "Generation" is a catch-all term for grid entries.

I appreciate the context. Generation isnt the best name for an input to the grid. Perhaps you are right and it's common in the industry but I wouldn't expect non-industry people to anticipate batteries and connections to the Danish, French, etc. grids to be generators.

And frankly I can't find evidence for the claim that the energy sector uses the term generation for inputs to the grid in general, as opposed to just the things literally generating electricity. Which does not surprise me.

So why not use the term grid entries? especially when there are also things like connections to other grids?

Dispatchable power is probably a more neutral term than generation. The reason battery is included in tools like this is that there is a rapidly growing, non-trivial amount of dispatchable battery power on grids. Anything that excludes that is kind of not giving you the full picture. And of course this is widely expected to vastly increase in amount of dispatchable GW over the next years. It's early days.

Dispatchable power is what matters if you are managing a grid. If you have lots of dispatchable power, you can deal with peaks and dips (both are valuable) in demand very rapidly and relatively cheaply. Long term, daily, and seasonal trends are fairly predictable. Even the weather is short term fairly predictable.

Battery adds a lot of predictability to grids. If you have hours to plan for it, you can bring online gas if needed (coal and nuclear are not typically kept around in a mothballed state for this). If it's seconds, you are screwed because that is non dispatchable power (you need to plan to have it and spend money to get it online). That's the gap batteries fill.

Anything with flywheels (gas, coal plants, etc.) needs time to (literally) spin up. And before that happens you first need to generate steam by boiling a large amount of cold water. Some gas plants can start relatively quickly but then run less efficiently. You can trade off dispatchability for efficiency. It means expending a lot of fuel just to get the thing started that otherwise delivers no power. They provide a lot of power once they are up and running but they are kind of useless when you need that power right away. And the more often you shut them down, the more you lose on spinning them up again.

Go look at any of the hundreds of energy dashboards. Batteries are both a source and use when thinking about fuel mix. You might not understand it but for most of the world we understand batteries are not magic.

>Batteries are both a source and use when thinking about fuel mix

That doesnt make them a generator. Other grids are sources of energy as well. Are they generators?

Again, I see absolutely nothing published anywhere classifying batteries as generators. It's a source. It's an input into the grid. But how can you argue all grid inputs are considered a generator, therefor batteries are generators? You seem quite alone in that.

You’re hung up on semantics. In practice, ISOs/TSOs report batteries in the generation mix because when they discharge, they inject MW just like any other generator. Interconnectors are treated the same way — not because they “generate,” but because they’re modeled as supply.

If you don’t like the terminology, take it up with the grid operators. That’s how the industry classifies it, whether you agree with the wording or not.

Again, I have no idea what you are trying to argue. We all understand how batteries work, yes they are not magic. From a fuel mix perspective or “generation” perspective they are lumped together. Most folks who are looking at this data recognize batteries are not magic, not sure why you are hung up on this.