Grids for Speed lands in Brussels

After six months of roadshow across Europe, from Spain to Hungary to Finland and Greece and nearly everywhere in between, Grids for Speed landed in Brussels this week. Having first made its debut in Greece this May when we launched it at Power Summit 2024, the key takeaway – that we need to invest now in our distribution grids for an electric future – has seen many of the Member States of the EU, but now we’ve brought it to the home of the EU’s institutions, and with even more to share. This week, we are revisiting Grids for Speed and what else we have brought to the table since its launch in May.

Grids for Speed

A quick recap if you happened to miss it. Grids for Speed was our flagship report with our knowledge partner, 安永 , on the state of Europe’s distribution grids and what they need to prepare for an electric future. Based on expectations of a fourfold increase in the growth rate of electricity demand on our way to 2050, the study highlights that distribution grids are in need of serious modernisation. Already 30% of them are over 40 years old, and if nothing is done, over 90% would reach that milestone by 2050. Turning the page means a serious inflow of capital.

How much exactly? €67 billion per year across the EU and Norway. This investment serves several purposes including the reinforcement of existing lines, replacements and renewals, resilience, smart metering and digitalisation efforts. Without this investment, we stand to miss several electrification objectives and perhaps most costly, remain heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports to serve our economy.

After crunching the numbers based on the European Commission ’s impact assessment of a 90% emissions reduction target for 2040, we found that the rate of electrification enabled by these investments would save us an annual €309 billion annually on fossil fuel imports between 2040 and 2050. For a €67 billion as an initial investment, the net present value should scream ‘GO’ to the finance-savvy among you.

And it gets better.

There are strategies we can employ right now to reduce this initial investment by around 18% to €55 billion. Included in this are anticipatory investment – a strategy that is so far blocked by national regulators in the majority of the cases among the EU so as not to allow ‘overinvestment’ but one which will be necessary to avoid playing cat and mouse with electricity demand. Another is asset performance excellence, essentially ensuring that grid assets are at full capacity and top health as much as possible to limit the need for modernisation. Lastly, there is grid-friendly flexibility that helps balance congestion and free up capacity wherever possible.

That’s where we left off with our study in May, with a foreshadow by our Secretary General, Kristian Ruby , that some technologies exist that can lower this cost even further. That’s what we came out with this week.

Grids for Speed reboot

On Tuesday, Grids for Speed landed in Brussels to a high-level reception. Over xxx attendees joined our Grids for Speed event, alongside top tier participants including representatives from the current Hungarian and upcoming Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union , Deputy State Secretary for Hungarian EU Affairs & International Relations, Peter Holicza Ph.D. and State Secretary of the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment, Krzysztof (Chris) Bolesta .

They were also joined by a number of CEOs, including Eurelectric President and E.ON CEO, Leo Birnbaum , EU Affairs Director of Enedis , Remy Garaude Verdier , CEO of SolarPower Europe , Walburga Hemetsberger , CEO of Alliander , Maarten Otto and the Founder & CEO, Octopus Energy , Greg Jackson . Also participating was the Director of EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) , Christian Pilgaard Zinglersen , Paul Micallef , Global Digital Grid Leader at 安永 and José Manuel Revuelta Mediavilla , Head of Enel Grids Iberia, all moderated by Journalist and Moderator, Chiyo Robertson .

Okay, back to the grids stuff.

Mapping investments

First and foremost, we come to you with a powerful tool – an interactive map - to break down where the grid investments we brought to light will be needed in what quantity in every EU Member State plus Norway, and the breakdown across each area of investment. It’s really cool. But that’s not all. It also shows different scenarios based on the cumulative EU value of €67 billion or €55 billion and is based directly on each country’s specific policies and objectives. This tool will be vital for policymakers to understand where and how to unlock investments and for what based on the geography.

Grids for Speed technologies

Now for the technologies promised by Kristian back in May. This week we published a report with the help of Hitachi Energy on five plus one Grids for Speed technologies (GfS-T) that can help distribution system operators (DSOs) and some of them even transmission system operators (TSOs). A critical caveat to note is that these are all predicated on the digitalisation of grids – only with this prerequisite in place can the GfS-T help make the most effective use of the existing infrastructure, which include:

1. On load tap changer (OLTC) transformers: Used to regulate voltage level fluctuations without having to interrupt the power supply as would be done with a manual tap changer. It can be highly beneficial for grids in situations where there is lots of distributed renewables like solar photovoltaics (PV) feeding electricity into the grid and the voltage levels increase, or lots of charging electric vehicles (EVs) where the voltage levels decrease. It enables real-time adjustments while keeping the power flowing, therefore maximising the capacity of the grid.
2. Line voltage regulators (LVR): This GfS-T is useful for networks with high renewable penetration where voltage often fluctuates. To keep voltage in the requested array in times of increased or decreased generation, an LVR reads an input voltage on a specific line and matches it with an output voltage, enabling power to flow continuously and safely within the permitted range.
3. Dynamic line rating (DLR): A methodic improvement for line ratings, DLR makes use of sensors to measure changes in the environment of a physical line that can be used to compute the safe capacity of that line given the prevailing conditions. As a result, DSOs can increase or decrease capacity on that line, making the most efficient use of their network overall.
4. Automatic network reconfiguration: Data and algorithms help reroute the network is with this GfS-T, helping the network recover in the case of a fault, increasing resilience, and also helping relieve an overloaded or congested grid in real-time, optimising the configuration of the network and making the most use of existing capacity.
5. High temperature low sag (HTLS) conductors: These lines are improved versions of simpler ones that are manufactured to have greater resistance to thermal expansion in high-temperature situations, reducing how much the line sags. This not only increases clearance with the ground, improving safety, but also reduces lost capacity on the line in case of high temperatures, as sagging lines do not conduct electricity as effectively, and also need to have voltage reduced for safety reasons.
6. Flexible alternating current transmission solutions (FACTS): This technology applies rather to TSOs, but can also help DSOs control the real and reactive power flow across the network, generally used to stabilise voltage levels at a point in the network experiencing real-time fluctuations.

With the right incentives for these technologies like smart bonuses on smart investments or the ability to provide remuneration on operating expenditures (OpEx) under which such investments fall, DSOs and TSOs can add these GfS-T to their networks, opening up capacity, reducing congestion and ultimately helping lower the amount of investment needed in modernisation. Of course, there is an upfront cost, but as Kristian mentioned in his presentation this week “there’s no free lunch” – the bottom line is that we have to increase our investment level significantly. Only in this way can we make our grids fit for an electric future.

This week's edition written by:

Nicholas A. Steinwand , Policy Communications Advisor - Eurelectric

With technical input by:

Zsuzsa Cseko , Senior Distribution and Market Facilitation Advisor - Eurelectric

and

Joren Schepers , Distribution and Market Facilitation Trainee - Eurelectric

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