Our current electricity grid was built hundreds of years ago, when power generation was centralised and our energy needs were far simpler. Electricity was distributed from large stable power plants to the consumers through a unidirectional flow that was easily predictable and did not require complex control. But over the last decades, cities have been going through a substantial change, seeing an exponential increase of their energy needs which … [Read more...]
Grid Asset Management 2019
Grid Asset Management 2019 Data-Driven Asset Management to Support Smart Investment Planning and Optimised Lifecycle Management 3-Day Conference, Exhibition & Networking Forum 14-16 May 2019, London Drawing together 120+ smart grid asset management professionals, this 3-day case-study driven programme provides an intensive review of 14+ next generation asset management digitalisation programmes. As regulatory pressures and smart … [Read more...]
Transforming Heating and Cooling creates jobs, new businesses
The UK has had great success in reducing emissions: down 43% overall since 1990. But, like most places, Heating and Cooling is struggling. Mark Woodward, of The Smart City Alliance and Nordic Heat, sets out a plan for progress, and includes lessons from Europe. The focus is on four core energy efficiency activities: reduce, recover, store and distribute. He explains how this also opens up new business models: in one town in Sweden chemicals firm … [Read more...]
Cyberattacks: the military considers micro grids as the answer
European power grids have long been considered as potential targets for major cyberattacks given the enormous damage they could inflict. Successful cyberattacks against power grids could not only cause societal and economic disruptions, but also put a dent in the military readiness of European countries. In the event of a blackout, the lights could go out in town halls and military facilities alike. Lukas Trakimavičius explains how micro grids … [Read more...]
VW joins Tesla and BMW – EV and energy company all-in-one pays for business and consumers
Last week’s announcement by VW that it is setting up a company called “Elli” (short for Electric Life) offering energy services shows VW’s vision of what lies ahead for the automotive industry. It brings them head to head with Tesla and BMW who are already playing a role outside the traditional bounds of the car business. They are the new breed, ready to profit from customers who want to go electric as long as it makes financial as well as … [Read more...]
Solar farms getting smaller, cheaper and smarter to overcome grid hurdles
The technical challenges and fast-changing regulatory requirements associated with installing and integrating variable RES capacity are inevitably holding up the transition to clean energy all around the globe. So the announcement of a new smart solar farm in Australia that seems to have overcome these hurdles is really good news. The situation has been neatly captured across a number of recent reports (summarised here) by Giles Parkinson of … [Read more...]
Investment risk: nuclear high, new load-following fossil fuel plants low
In the current policy environment many energy technologies can appear attractive with the right set of assumptions: discounted clean energy technologies (wind, solar and nuclear) where the discount rate is heavily influenced by risk (see graph) and, perhaps surprisingly, new load-following fossil fuel plants (especially natural gas) where continued wind/solar technology forcing actually provides substantial upside potential. CCS researcher Schalk … [Read more...]
We have a decade to prevent dangerous climate change: these 10 policies can save us
The climate change challenge is not technical nor even economic, but a matter of enacting the right policies, writes Silvio Marcacci, Communications Director at San Francisco-based think tank Energy Innovation. Based on new research, Marcacci outlines the the types of policies that are the most effective. … [Read more...]
Are solar microgrids the future in the developing world?
Setting out to evaluate the real-world performance of solar microgrids in developing countries, a team from the Energy Institute at Haas partnered with startup Gram Power to provide small smart grid systems to unelectrified rural communities in India. While many industry experts see microgrids as important for future electrification, what the team found was that few communities wanted them, and they were difficult to implement and operate. … [Read more...]
Huawei’s eLTE-DSA technology ushers in the Age of Wireless Power IoT
PROMOTED CONTENT - Huawei is building the world’s leading wireless power IOT in cooperation with the State Grid of China. Huawei’s eLTE-DSA technology ensures low latency, low power consumption, easy evolution and anti-interference, writes Wei Ke_Tai of the Huawei Enterprise Wireless Marketing Support Department. … [Read more...]
Smart cities: not enough projects make the grade
Despite the hype about smart cities, and the availability of EU funding, there are very few projects out there that qualify for funding, according to Lada Strelnikova, lead fund manager at the European Energy Efficiency Fund (EEEF). An exception: Belgian bank Belfius has, with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB), provided €1 billion to smart city projects involving more than 100 municipalities in Belgium. According to Joost Declerck … [Read more...]
Why we need a blackout
The risk of a cyber-attack that will take down the power system is seriously underestimated, writes financial energy specialist Gerard Reid. To prevent future disaster, we need to build a completely new power system. Reliability is not anymore about the “average minutes of downtime per year”. Courtesy Energy and Carbon blog. … [Read more...]
How the micro-grid solar solution can realize electrification in remote regions
Promoted content - Micro-grids (solar PV and storage) are ideal to achieve rapid electrification in remote areas, but their implementation still faces many obstacles, writes Long Sheng of Huawei. The Chinese company has supported the Ministry of Energy in Cameroon to build a successful micro-grid solution. … [Read more...]
DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook shows massive shift of investment from oil and gas into power lines
The global energy transition will lead to a massive expansion of power lines at all voltage levels as well as a steep growth in the number of transformers and substations in the electricity system. This is one of the major new findings of the second edition of the Energy Transition Outlook, the annual flagship publication of global technical consultancy DNV GL. As a result, grid costs will triple, yet this cost explosion is offset by cost … [Read more...]
European utilities have increased their activity in energy cloud platforms
The energy industry is experiencing a profound transformation as the sector moves towards a more intelligent, more distributed, and cleaner use of electricity, referred to as the Energy Cloud. According to digital innovation expert Alex Metz of Navigant, European utilities are increasingly recognising the value of integrated distributed energy resources (DER) and the potential of the Energy Cloud. In this article he looks at the activities of … [Read more...]
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