In order to understand the implications of these worst case scenarios as highlighted in the results section it was important to predict the economic impacts if such a scenario was to occur due to heavy deployment of Electric Vehicles or the electrification of the heating demand within the estate.
To carry this assessment forward, information was taken from the proceeding of the implementation steering group for ofgem produced by CE Electric UK (CE Electric UK, 2004). This data, albeit slightly out of date, gave the team some insight as to the costs of replacing cable infrastructure and upgrading the substations and a similar methodology and pricing structure has been adopted to carry out the analysis. Table1 demonstrates the costs and table 2 demonstrates the number of distribution systems.
Indicative Costs |
||
Mains Cable |
HV |
£6,000 |
LV |
£23,000 |
|
Service Costs |
£10,000 |
|
Plant & Building & Civil |
£18,000 |
|
Admin, Design, Jointing, Supervision, Contractor Liaison, Drawings, Testing, Project Management, Wayleaves etc. |
£4,500 |
|
Total |
£61,500 |
Table 1- Indicative Costs
Type of System |
No. |
National Grid (400 & 275 kV) |
238 |
Distribution System |
|
>650 V (i.e. 132kV, 33kV etc) |
4,849 |
Final Distribution |
|
Pole mounted |
260,435 |
Ground mounted |
166,015 |
Total all voltages |
431,537 |
Table 2- Number of Distribution Systems
An inflation calculation was carried out to calculate what these costs would be for utility companies today (Stevenson, 2014). Below are details of this calculation
Year |
Annual % Inflation (RPI) |
Total Cost |
2004 |
3.2 |
63,468 |
2005 |
1.8 |
64,610 |
2006 |
4 |
67,195 |
2007 |
3.7 |
69,681 |
2008 |
0.5 |
70,030 |
2009 |
2 |
71,430 |
2010 |
4.1 |
74,359 |
2011 |
4.1 |
77,407 |
2012 |
2.5 |
79,343 |
2013 |
2 |
80,930 |
Table 3- Inflation Costs
Therefore by taking the total number of substations in the UK and summing the total cost of substation replacement expenditures, the total rate is
£35 BILLION
This figure demonstrates the reasons that may cause concern. If the aggressive deployment of these technologies is implemented then naturally it will incur huge costs to the utility companies.