The “Black Lives Matter” movement, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police at the end of May, has reverberated around the world. Particularly in North America and Europe it has gone well beyond the behaviour of the police and prompted calls to identify and root out structural racism wherever it is found. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas looks at U.S. research that asks: “Do black households spend more on … [Read more...]
Sales down, but cash preserved too: Regulators take note when setting new Utility rates
Utilities are suffering financial impacts because of the current pandemic, and regulators will be asked to address them when they set new electricity rates. The intention will be to help the utilities recover while keeping bills affordable for their customers. But not all the impacts on the utilities are bad news, explains Jim Lazar at RAP looking at the U.S. Though revenues have dropped and some labour costs risen, there is a list of things that … [Read more...]
Virtual blockchain for prosumers replicates a live utility-scale grid
Wayne Hicks at NREL describes research that’s created a virtual blockchain “prosumer” accounting system that replicates a live utility-scale grid. The goal of a real-world application is to allow countless individual households with their own electricity storage and generation to buy and sell power to each other; a truly revolutionary pathway. Clearly, it will require a system that securely accounts for vast amounts of transactions - a big enough … [Read more...]
10,000 sq km of Solar in the Sahara could provide all the world’s energy needs
A little over 10 years ago David MacKay drew attention by saying “All the world’s power could be provided by a square 100km by 100km area in the Sahara.” Furthermore, MacKay’s calculation of the full potential of the region’s Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) totalled 25 times the TWh/year the world uses today. That was looking at the Middle East and North Africa’s (MENA) high solar irradiance, ample available land and the technologies of the day. … [Read more...]
Developing nations: Efficiency is cheaper than Coal in Indonesia
Developing economies face a particularly big challenge in reducing emissions. Their economies are growing rapidly, industrialising and urbanising. Their populations surely deserve the same rewards of wealth that the rich countries – the historical and per capita big emitters - have experienced. Can they get there without all the emissions? Indonesia believes so, committing itself to 29% unconditional emissions reductions by 2030. Virginie … [Read more...]
Negative electricity prices: lockdown’s demand slump exposes inflexibility of German power
The lockdown has unexpectedly allowed us to model certain aspects of the energy sector’s possible future. One is the oversupply of variable renewables into the grid. In Germany, a slump in demand plus an exceptionally sunny and windy few months sent wholesale electricity prices negative and to record lows. Fossil generators calculated that paying buyers to take electricity was cheaper than performing a shut-down re-start sequence, so they did … [Read more...]
Investing for tomorrow, because Energy subsidies will decline 25% by 2050 – analysis
IRENA has modelled energy subsidies to 2030 and 2050 for their pathway to meet the Paris targets. Here, Michael Taylor summarises their findings. Firstly, they estimate today’s global direct energy sector subsidies to be $634bn/year (2017 figures). The vast majority, $447bn, went to fossil fuels. (By the way, he points out that none of these figures include the externality costs - pollution, healthcare, environment - which equate to trillions and … [Read more...]
An EU Hydrogen strategy: from industry feedstock to energy vector
The bravest recovery strategies will invest robustly in new yet-to-take-off clean energy technologies. If you are going to have to spend hundreds of billions to revive your economy isn’t it better to replace the old with the new rather than prop up what you’ll have to abandon soon anyway? In anticipation of that happening, new technologies are lining up. Here, Cédric Philibert at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate summarises their detailed … [Read more...]
IEA projections 2020: energy demand plunges but Renewables still grow at Gas, Coal’s expense
The IEA has made its projections for the impact of the pandemic lockdown on energy demand in 2020 (they say it’s too early for them to assess anything more long term), and its implications for the different generation types. This article summarises their special Global Energy Review 2020, published at the end of last week. It assumes that lockdowns are eased this year and growth gradually returns. With that, global energy demand will fall 6% in … [Read more...]
DSOs can use digitalisation to empower all grid stakeholders
Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the distribution network to ensure that electricity is delivered to end-users in a secure, reliable and efficient manner. Harry Taylor, Chris Collins and Erik Rakhou at Baringa Partners spell out what DSOs need to do to take full advantage of digitalisation technologies and processes to make them fit for a rapidly transforming energy system. A growing … [Read more...]
IRENA’s Global Renewables Outlook and how Europe can lead the way
If the coronavirus slump has knocked everything off track IRENA’s first ever Global Renewables Outlook is a timely reminder of what that track should look like. It can help policymakers design stimuli packages that will get us back onto it, and even accelerate the transition. IRENA’s Gayathri Prakash, Nicholas Wagner and Ricardo Gorini run through the comprehensive report’s main recommendations. Annual investment, shares and GW targets to 2030 … [Read more...]
Bounceback or Recession? Modelling the impact on electricity prices to 2025
Carlos Perez Linkenheil at Energy Brainpool models three scenarios to understand the factors that are having the biggest impact on – and thereby make predictions for - electricity prices, revenues, energy source merit order, and emissions in the EU. Other parameters in the scope of their analysis include oil prices, gas prices, commodities markets, carbon taxes, and the EUA/emissions market. Clearly, collapsing prices are profoundly distorting … [Read more...]
Floating Offshore Wind Turbines: utility scale by 2024?
Floating wind turbines can access deeper waters that the usual fixed offshore ones. There the wind speeds are greater and more consistent. It opens the door to even greater efficiency and cost reductions. America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has summarised a webinar by their Offshore Wind Research Platform Lead, Walt Musial. Other main take-aways include: floating platforms have long been engineered and proven by the oil and gas … [Read more...]
Regulatory challenges to foster cross-border trade in electricity systems with increasing shares of renewables
The share of renewable generation in Europe’s power system is rising fast, but interconnection is not keeping up. Join us on May 19, 2020 to discuss this and related issues. More wind and solar makes the supply of electricity much more dependent on the weather. Nobody wants to build capacity only to switch it off when there’s too much heading onto the local grid. This could put an extra strain on delivering the Green Deal. One solution is to … [Read more...]
Accelerate EV infra, buildings refits to use electricity’s looming spare capacity
How do we turn the pandemic downturn into an executable opportunity, above and beyond targets and promises? Chris Nelder at RMI presents data on how electricity load has dropped during the lockdown in the U.S. That load will return when the economy recovers. In the interim capacity will go unused. New capacity in the pipeline could be delayed. Nelder suggests policy makers grasp the opportunity to fill that gap and use that capacity by directing … [Read more...]
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