The huge divergence of electricity prices between nations after the energy crises of 2021 and 2022 exposed Europe’s pressing need to increase cross-border transmission capacity, explain George Dimopoulos, Conall Heussaff and Georg Zachmann at Bruegel. Without it, generation costs will be higher, emissions too, and new generation will continue to be badly congested. The author’s calculations reveal that one additional MW of cross-border capacity … [Read more...]
What does cutting-edge Smart Metering look like as Grids become increasingly complex?
The global growth in electrification means grids everywhere are facing new opportunities as well as big challenges. Intermittent renewables, distributed energy generation, and the need to use every kWh as efficiently as possible means Distribution System Operators (DSO), in particular, must deploy optimisation solutions, and fast. Gridspertise provides state-of-the-art solutions for the digital transformation of electricity distribution networks. … [Read more...]
EU now has 9,000+ “energy communities”: smart, decentralised, flexible generation and consumption
The goal of the EU’s “Clean Energy for all Europeans package” (CEP), adopted in 2019, is to improve the functioning and design of Europe’s energy markets and systems. Luca Arfini, writing for ESCI, explains how, as part of the CEP, new market actors called “active customers/consumers and citizens” and “energy communities” are being established. As variable renewable generation grows, the whole system needs to be more decentralised, smarter and … [Read more...]
China can learn from the EU about power market design and infrastructure build-out
How will China integrate its growing Variable Renewable Energy generation and create a nationwide energy system that avoids the risks of curtailment, stranded assets and blackouts? A good place to start is to learn from Europe. Helen Farrell at ECECP summarises their report that uses the European experience to model scenarios for China. China’s key challenges is that its power market lacks an effective auxiliary service market, a capacity market, … [Read more...]
1,500GW of Renewables deployment delayed globally because Grids aren’t modernising fast enough
A first-of-its-kind global country-by-country study, “Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions” by the IEA finds that electricity grids are not keeping pace with the rapid growth of clean energy technologies. Without greater policy attention and investment, shortfalls in the reach and quality of grid infrastructure puts at risk our climate goals. Worldwide, we need to add or replace 80m kms of power lines by 2040 – an amount equal to the … [Read more...]
Make EV batteries bidirectional, get GWs of storage for the Grid
How to cope with the hourly, daily and seasonal variation in demand as regions electrify more, depend more on variable renewables like wind and solar, and cut baseload fossil generation? Storage shifts load nicely. But why build grid-scale batteries when millions of little batteries in our EVs are sitting idle in our driveways for most of the time? As Mark Specht at the Union of Concerned Scientists explains, it’s why in California a bill is … [Read more...]
Scaling up global grid-scale Storage to 80GW/year (it was 16GW in 2022)
Globally, annual additions of grid-scale battery storage must rise to 80GW between now and 2030, explain Amit Jain, Gabriela Elizondo Azuela and Aakarshan Vaid at the World Bank, writing for WEF. In 2022 it was only 16GW. The biggest gap, perhaps understandably, is in developing countries. It’s in these regions where renewables auctions for deployment – primarily solar and wind – need to start including hybrid storage as part of the package. The … [Read more...]
Rooftop Solar: will subsidies benefit wealthy early adopters, while grid limits lock out the latecomers?
Subsidies encouraging homeowners to install rooftop solar are being won by the affluent who can afford to be first movers. And when the technology has come down in price, the remaining majority of households will be shut out of the benefits of own-generation because the grid won’t have the capacity to integrate everyone. That’s the argument made by Juan Jose Cuenca Silva, Barry Hayes and Hannah Daly at the University College Cork who summarise … [Read more...]
Spain: as Renewables rise, managing supply and demand is the next challenge
In May this year Spain reached a landmark day when it was powered 100% by renewables - solar, wind and hydroelectric power - from ten o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock in the evening. In four years the share of renewable energy generation rose from 37% to 50%, while non-renewables dropped from 62% to 49%. Its draft Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition targets 35% of renewable energy in final consumption by 2030 and 100% in the … [Read more...]
Europe’s grid bottlenecks are delaying its energy transition
***While you're here... REGISTER NOW for "REPowering the grid for Solar PV" with the Vice-President of Tauron, DG ENER C, Eurelectric and SolarPowerEurope - Online Wednesday September 20 from 11:00 to 12:15 CEST*** No amount of record sales and deployment in Europe of heat pumps, EVs, solar farms, wind turbines and all the rest will guarantee the region meeting its electrification targets if the grids aren’t ready to integrate them. As … [Read more...]
Only certain types of Hybridisation (Wind or Solar + Storage) beat building expensive transmission lines
In some regions, the roll out of new wind and solar has outpaced new transmission. That causes “congestion” at times when the variable renewables are producing too much power locally, and cannot sell the excess, which squeezes profitability. That’s certainly the case in the U.S. now. One answer is “hybridisation” where storage is built alongside the renewables, to save that excess power for when it can be sold later. Julie Mulvaney Kemp at … [Read more...]
Power to the people: citizen-centred Just Transitions challenge energy system centralisation
EU Member States need to phase-out coal and transform their carbon-intensive industries to make Europe climate-neutral. However, these should not be the only goals: transparency and justice must also accompany this path, argue Diana SĂĽsser at IEECP, Serafeim Michas at TEESlab and Ricardo Antonio GarcĂa Mira at the University of A Coruna. As Member States implement their territorial just transition plans, they must ensure they benefit affected … [Read more...]
Community Batteries: when they’re the best option for overcoming grid constraints. And when they’re not
Community batteries are a shared asset in neighbourhoods with rooftop solar, avoiding the need for every household to have its own battery. Even people unable to have rooftop solar can use it. It’s taking off in Australia, supported at both the state and federal level. But Bjorn Sturmberg, Alice Wendy Russell, Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Louise Bardwell and Marnie Shaw at the Australian National University summarise their research which warns that it … [Read more...]
Electric Utilities: ESG investors should invest in, not avoid, the high-carbon emitters
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings point climate-conscious investors away from companies that are not decarbonising fast enough (or at all!). But surely they should be doing the exact opposite when it comes to climate-critical sectors like electric utilities, explain Tricia Holland, Ryan Foelske, Ella Warshauer, Jon Rea, Sarah LaMonaca and Uday Varadarajan at RMI. Of course, that presents a new challenge. The investor first needs … [Read more...]
Li-ion Grid Batteries aren’t always the best replacement for Gas Peakers
Gas peakers need to be replaced with something cleaner. Like grid batteries. But the question is “when”, says Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas. Summarising his co-authored paper, he explains that a review of 19 gas peakers in the U.S., replaced with Li-ion grid-scale batteries, reveals only 5 make economic and climate sense (i.e. a positive net present value after including monetised climate and human health impacts). … [Read more...]
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