Welcome to FES 2020
2 August 2020
On 27 July 2020 the National Grid ESO released the new version of their Future Energy Scenarios - FES 2020.
Since then we have been busy updating this site to reflect the massive changes in the new version when compared with the previous release. Much of this work has now been completed and our website now reflects the FES 2020 plans and scenarios.
However, not all of the required work is done. One or two apparent "gaps" in the information provided in the FES 2020 documentation mean that we are not yet ready to publish updated information on Vehicle-to-Grid, for example. When these have been resolved we will update this website and send out a notification that we have done so.
But - perhaps most significantly of all - FES 2020 relies very heavily on two technologies that make modelling a very different exercise. The first is the use of hydrogen, which featured before but now takes a very significant role in FES 2020. The other is BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture & Storage), which is to all intents and purposes new in FES 2020.
The basis of our modelling is to apply actual performance and realistic analysis to assess the National Grid's forecasts and plans. In the case of both of these two technologies there is no actual performance to rely on. Neither has been used in a GB context in production, and both are still in "prototype/demonstration" status. This means that any modelling will be very speculative. In addition, according to FES 2020 neither will make any significant and measurable contribution for several years.
For this reason we have temporarily disabled our modellers while we assess the possibility of doing any realistic modelling based on such unknown technologies. We will notify users when we restore our modellers, and will include an explanation of the approach we have taken to assess the National Grid's forecasts.
In the meantime there are many other significant aspects of FES 2020 that we will be assessing in our news articles, and of course we continue to publish our weekly reports on electricity production in Great Britain.
You can find the National Grid plan and Future Energy Scenarios (FES) here.