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...]
Thermal Energy Storage for heating and cooling Buildings: finding materials that melt at room temperature
Thermal Energy Storage (TES) in individual buildings can cut heating and cooling costs while delivering grid stability, explains Ryan Horns writing for NREL. Back in the 1800s blocks of ice were shipped to cities to cool buildings down. Today, research is underway to identify materials that can be heated or cooled by excess grid power and release or absorb heat when needed. Similarly, materials are being researched and developed that “phase … [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...]
Sodium-ion batteries ready for commercialisation: for grids, homes, even compact EVs
Sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries, a much more abundant and cheaper alternative to the standard Lithium-ion, are on the verge of commercialisation, explain Carlos Ruiz, Martina Lyons, Isaac Elizondo Garcia and Zhaoyu Wu at IRENA. Though there’s enough Lithium in the world to support global electrification targets, tightening demand and supply chain constraints point at the urgent need for an alternative. The cost of a Na-ion battery cell is expected … [Read more...]
Rooftop Solar for industry: up to 35% of U.S. manufacturing sectors could supply all their own power
Rooftop solar could supply the complete electricity needs of 5-35% of U.S. manufacturing sectors, explains Matthew Eckelman at Northeastern University who summarises his co-authored paper “Technical feasibility of powering U.S. manufacturing with rooftop solar PV”. At present, only 0.1% of industrial electricity demand in the U.S. is supplied by on-site sources of renewable energy. But large, unobstructed industrial rooftops and the declining … [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...]
Does Nuclear slow down the scale-up of Wind and Solar? France and Germany can’t agree
France and Germany lead the camps in disagreeing on the future of nuclear in Europe. Camille Lafrance and Benjamin Wehrmann at CLEW take a deep dive into the reasons why, quoting experts and politicians. Germany’s vision of a fully renewables-based EU is at odds with France’s unwavering support for low-carbon nuclear energy. European-wide agreement on targets matter because they drive future investment in the targeted technologies and the design … [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...]
“Flow Batteries” for grid-scale storage: modelling cheaper alternatives to Vanadium
Flow batteries are a promising new technology for grid storage. Rather than the standard batteries that store charge in a solid material, they use a solution to store that charge, making large-scale long-duration electricity storage much easier. Vanadium electrolytes have been the preferred choice so far, but affordable supplies are limited and a cheaper alternative will be needed for global scale-up, explains Nancy Stauffer at MIT who describes … [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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