Review: HT26: Week 5 – Review: MicroGrids: opportunities for microgrids to increase renewable energy deployment and overcome grid constraints for real estate developments
by Linus NjoguView the associated event for this review
“By what percentage do you think you could increase the amount of solar in the UK by only using 20% of the largest warehouses in the country?” The answer, as revealed by Henry Leivers, is 100%. That means a doubling of national solar capacity using a fraction of available rooftop space. Yet fewer than 5% of UK’s warehouses currently have solar PV installed. This formed a starting point for Leivers’ presentation on microgrids and their potential to unlock renewable energy potential currently inhibited by grid constraints, institutional barriers and commercial inertia.
Leivers is Director of Commercial Projects at SNRG, a company specialising in microgrids. After studying geography at Cambridge, he worked in strategy consulting before entering the renewable energy sector. He worked in wind and solar consultancy for landowners, then moved to Imerys, a mining company in Cornwall with 150 miles of its own grid network, where he connected one of the UK’s first private solar farms. He then joined Centrica, working on early battery storage projects and later the Cornwall Local Energy Market, a county-wide trial integrating renewables to overcome grid constraints. Cornwall served as a microcosm of what the UK would look like with high renewables penetration: so much wind and solar was installed that grid constraints forced generators to curtail output, “slightly criminal,” as he put it, when the country is trying to decarbonise. The project won several awards, but more significantly, brought together the people who would later reconvene to start SNRG.
So what is a microgrid? Leivers explained it as a localised energy network that aggregates multiple properties behind a single metering point, enabling power generation, storage and sharing. The key concept is “behind-the-meter” generation. When you purchase electricity from the grid, over 60% of the cost is not the energy itself but transmission, distribution and levies. Behind-the-meter generation avoids these charges. SNRG’s microgrids aggregate homes, warehouses, or mixed-use developments behind a single meter, allowing installation of solar panels on optimally oriented roofs while benefits are shared across all occupants.
Leivers outlined the challenges facing real estate developers seeking to decarbonise. Grid energy costs have risen over 500% in two decades, yet landlords have little incentive to invest in renewables since tenants pay the bills, while tenants cannot invest in properties they occupy briefly. This is starting to shift as institutional investors evaluate environmental performance and banks offer better rates for cleaner assets. Grid constraints are also forcing developers to think differently: a developer may secure planning permission for a promising site only to discover that the Distribution Network Operator cannot provide capacity for a decade. Microgrids offer a solution, but hurdles remain. The technology carries higher upfront costs, and while developers could recoup these long-term, they are content to pass higher energy costs to tenants, keeping their margins intact. New technologies like heat pumps and batteries introduce complexity for developers; and doing something different feels like unnecessary risk.
SNRG’s microgrids address these barriers. The company designs, funds, builds, and operates microgrids, eliminating upfront costs for developers and taking on the operational complexity. All assets are managed in real-time through a cloud-based platform, optimised for weather, energy prices and usage patterns. For instance, thermal storage shifts demand away from peak times, flattening the demand curve enough to reduce grid capacity requirements by 40% or more. For tenants, on-site generation delivers 20-30% savings on electricity costs.
SNRG’s model has been tested across a range of projects. Otterpool Park in Kent, the UK’s largest net-zero new town, will comprise 8,500 homes and 150,000m2 of commercial space. SNRG is delivering up to 35 SmartGrids, a 12MW solar farm and over 20MWh of battery storage. Harwell Science and Innovation Campus near Oxford faced grid constraints threatening a decade-long development delay. SNRG’s microgrids are enabling continued expansion by reducing net grid demand and working with tenants to release unused capacity. At Marelli’s automotive manufacturing site in Sunderland, the grid operator initially limited rooftop solar to around 1MW. Through its control systems, SNRG deployed 2.4MW, 142% more than would otherwise have been possible.
Given that the business model targets developers, the question of tenant rights arose. Under UK law, householders can switch electricity suppliers whenever they choose. Leivers explained that SNRG acts as the default supplier, but tenants are legally allowed to switch providers. Customer education is therefore critical. If residents don’t understand why they’re on a microgrid or what savings they’re receiving, they might switch to a traditional supplier, undermining the whole model. The collective benefit depends on collective participation: the more residents who stay on the microgrid, the greater the savings for everyone.
The seminar offered insight into what needs to fall into place for microgrids to work: aligned regulation, commercial models that serve developers, tenants, and grid operators, and education of all. But another thread ran through the seminar, the role of chance and a willingness to try something different. The Cornwall project brought together people who later founded SNRG. A chance conversation in a pub led to this seminar. And at its heart, the microgrid proposition is a bet that developers will deviate from the standard playbook and that regulation, designed for centralised systems, will eventually adapt. As the case studies showed, microgrids are technically and commercially viable, but scaling them requires overcoming the grid constraints, institutional barriers and commercial inertia that currently leave vast renewable potential untapped.