Energy

Electricity transmission, distribution and generation forms our core business. Operations Director Mark Preece reviews the activities of our Energy Division.

Demand

COVID-19continuedtoaffectenergy consumption this year. A return to more normal patterns of work and behaviour, coupled with a mild winter, reduced demand. Unit sales fell 4% from 639m to 613m kilowatt hours. Similarly, peak demand, recorded on 22 December 2021, ‘normalised’ at 145MW, well below last year’s 170MW and our record of 178MW set in March 2018. We imported 95.3% of our requirements from France (2021: 95.2%) and generated 0.3% of our electricity on-Island from our solar PV arrays and diesel plant (2021: 0.4%). We purchased the remaining 4.4% (2021: 4.4%) of our electricity from the local Energy from Waste plant.

613m

Kilowatt hours

145MW

Peak demand

95.3%

Energy imported from France

Renewables

Lastyear’sFrenchfishingdispute raised the issue of energy sovereignty and the security of imported power supplies. Although this dispute has been resolved, the global energy crisis has kept us focused on the matter. One of our strategic work streams has been to develop an energy sourcing strategy, including further research intooffshorewindfeasibility,tomeet the Island’s net-zero carbon agenda and increase energy sovereignty. While we continue to expand our onIsland solar PV generation capabilities (detailsp28),wenowviewoffshore wind generation as increasingly viable due to falling costs. The Government’s Carbon Neutral Roadmap and the Bridging Island Plan both identify anoffshorewindfarmasbeingof potential strategic value to the Island. Not only would such a project provide greater energy independence, but the scale of local resources would also provide several times the Island’s need, providing a commercial opportunity for Jersey to become a net exporter of energy. We have therefore renewedourresearcheffortsthisyear and held discussions with the new Minister for the Environment.

Generation

Maintaining our generation assets at La Collette Power Station and Queen’s Road is essential to mitigate the ‘low probability’ but ‘high impact’ risk of disruption to imported power supplies. Due to the new threats to European supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we have stepped up our preparedness with an infrastructure project that increases our on-Island generation capability by 40MW by allowing us to connect multiple, mobile diesel generation sets, sourced from the UK, to our system, enabling us to meet all but the severest winter demands.

Transmission

The completion of the new 75MVA 90/33 kV transformer at La Collette last year meant we could commence work on a project that will see a new 90/11kV transformer installed at Queen’s Road as part of the longterm development plan for our 90kV network. This work will also allow the eventual decommissioning of the ageing 33kV cable interconnectors between Queen’s Road and La Collette and provide further options to enhance supply security and facilitate the load growth net-zero will bring by allowing us to install more generation plant at La Collette.

Service Delivery

Our Service Delivery team is already feeling the positive impact net-zero will bring. Workload has continued to increase in the general construction industry across the Island and to meet the demands of carbon reduction. This has included supporting the ongoing growth in the connection of solar PV feeding into our network. Our planning team are already working with clients on 54 future larger schemes and have 44 active construction schemes in progress. This has resulted in the installation over 27km of cable, the completion of over 1,900 joints, the installation of seven new distribution substations and a further 11 substations upgraded to support ongoing load growth.

Distribution

The ArcGIS project is key to enabling JE to meet the demands of the Government’s Carbon Neutral Roadmap for the journey to net-zero by assessing the investments needed over the next 10 to 15 years to meet the demand of the conversion of 20,000 premises to electric heating and large-scale overnight EV charging. Our new Work and Asset Management System (WAMS) is now gathering data and trends to yield optimumoperationalefficiencies from our industrial workforce and move forward our maintenance programmes on the distribution network and production plant located at La Collette. (Further details, p35)

Electricity sources 2021/2022

+0.1%

JE EfW Import

0.3% 4.4% 95.3%

-0.1% 0.0%