The Charging Futures Forum


The Charging Futures Forum in the UK has recently published a paper entitled
“Electricity Network Access & Forward Looking Charges: Final Report and Conclusions”, available at
http://www.chargingfutures.com/media/1203/access-and-flc-final-report-and-conclusions.pdf

The report presents a series of options for how we might pay for using the electricity network in future, and describes potential changes to the status quo, some radical, and the gains and losses for different parties.
Such changes have the potential to make or break business cases for local flexibility or balancing markets, new renewable generation and even the future of electric vehicles.  Electric vehicles owners might be expected to pay higher network costs for charging their cars at home, and users in constrained areas might compete for access to the network through auctions.
The report covers the cost of new connections (Access) and Forward-Looking Charges - the part of the network cost that can be influenced by behaviour, bringing them together into a series of ‘plausible packages’. Charging for the residual/fixed costs of network is being covered by the Targeted Charging Review which is being dealt with separately. Together these charges currently make up around a quarter of a typical domestic bill. 
An understanding of the charges is clearly necessary to the planning of Community Energy projects, in order to ensure a viable business plan.

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