What If Electricity Isn't the Thing We Should Be Moving?

One of the curious things about Britain is that we can spend weeks complaining about the rain...

Published as part of iQ-LOOP's Insights series.

...and then, a few months later, find ourselves under a hosepipe ban.

It seems ridiculous.

After all, the rain didn't disappear. We all remember it rather well.

The problem wasn't that Britain ran out of water.

The problem was that the water wasn't necessarily where it was needed, when it was needed, or in a form that could easily be delivered.

It turns out that water security isn't really about rain.

• It's about reservoirs.

• Pipes.

• Storage.

• Distribution.

• In other words, logistics.

I've begun to wonder whether energy suffers from exactly the same problem.

We often talk about electricity as though it is something we either have or we don't.

• Enough power stations?

• Enough wind farms?

• Enough solar?

• Enough nuclear?

Those are all important questions.

But recent events on Britain's electricity network suggest they may not be the only ones.

During periods of exceptional demand, the challenge is often not simply whether enough electricity exists somewhere on the system.

It is whether sufficient electricity can be delivered to the right place, at the right time, through infrastructure that may already be operating close to its limits.

As renewable generation increases, this challenge becomes more visible.

Wind and solar can produce abundant electricity, but not always where demand is highest or when demand is greatest.

Transmission networks become constrained.

Grid connection queues lengthen.

New generating capacity takes years to develop.

Meanwhile, AI infrastructure is being planned, financed and commissioned on an entirely different timescale.

The issue is no longer simply one of generation.

• It is about the right energy.

• At the right time.

• In the right place.

• And increasingly, it is about logistics.

Imagine discovering that one side of the country has more electricity than it can use (e.g. Scottish 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 wind farms), while another is desperately trying to find enough to keep up with demand.

The obvious reaction is to say:

“Well... move it.”

Unfortunately, electricity doesn't always cooperate.

It has an awkward habit of insisting on travelling through wires, in real time, across infrastructure with very definite limits.

Which made me wonder something rather simple.

• What if we've been trying to move the wrong thing?

• Not because there is anything wrong with electricity.

• Quite the opposite.

• Electricity is one of humanity's greatest inventions.

But perhaps we have become so accustomed to moving electricity that we have forgotten we are actually trying to move something else.

Energy.

Those two words sound interchangeable.

They aren't.

Electricity is one way of transporting energy.

But it isn't the only one.

We've been moving energy for thousands of years in the form of wood, coal, oil, and gas.

Nobody thought twice about putting energy onto ships, trains or lorries.

We simply accepted that energy could be transported because it happened to be contained in materials such as wood, coal, oil, and gas.

Which brings us, rather unexpectedly, to aluminium.

Most people think of aluminium as something used to make aircraft, drinks cans or window frames.

Few people realise that producing aluminium consumes enormous amounts of electricity.

In a sense, aluminium carries a substantial part of the energy used to create it.

That doesn't mean a block of aluminium is simply a battery.

It isn't.

But it does raise an interesting question.

If electricity can be used to create a stable material that already travels around the world every day...

...have we discovered another way of moving energy?

Not through transmission lines.

Not through pipelines.

But through the same warehouses, ports, freight trains, ships and lorries that already underpin global trade.

Now that is a rather different idea.

Instead of asking only how we move more electricity...

...perhaps we should sometimes ask how we move energy.

That shift in thinking is what led us at iQ-LOOP to begin exploring aluminium as a form of energy inventory.

The technology itself is important, of course.

But I suspect the larger idea may prove more interesting.

Energy would no longer need to be thought of only as a flow.

It could also be treated as inventory.

Produced where electricity is abundant.

Stored without needing to remain connected to the grid.

Transported using familiar industrial logistics.

Positioned close to where it will eventually be needed.

We have spent more than a century becoming extraordinarily good at building electricity networks.

Perhaps the next century will also be about building energy logistics.

Treating energy not only as something that flows...

...but as something that can be stored, transported, owned and positioned before it is needed.

After all, that is exactly how we already think about almost everything else society considers essential.

Perhaps energy should not be the exception.