Ideas powering transformation

Imagine you could design the energy strategy for the biggest city in your country.

What would be your top priority?

Electrification?

Renewable energy generation?

Smart grids? EV charging networks? Efficiency?

We asked a select group of energy industry executives this question, as part of our?thought leadership study?on the immediate and longer-term future of our built environment and energy systems.

Energy storage came out on top. It was named as a high or top priority by 70%. The rapid growth of distributed, variable energy resources is leading to a corresponding boom in storage.

Globally, the capacity of storage systems is?expected to grow by 56%, to over 270GW by 2026, with utility-scale batteries expanding sixfold.

Energy storage systems are set to be a critical element in the power grids of the future, absorbing excess supply, replacing reserve power plants, and providing grid services such as system inertia and frequency response.

Enabling new energy infrastructure?

But storage solutions need to be surrounded by intelligent grid infrastructure or these benefits cannot be realized. The energy transition is seeing power grids evolve from largely one-way energy flows, with perhaps a dozen participating entities, to multi-directional flows between thousands of participants. At the same time, grids need to be connected to new sources of renewable energy, many of which are far from areas of strong demand.?

The time scales for projects across many parts of Europe is about eight years. That's just not urgent enough.

Rachel Ruffle, CEO for EMEA at RES, an independent renewable energy company

The energy industry needs to accelerate the construction and expansion of a modernized power grid to ensure the energy transition is not held back. This is a significant challenge. “Often we are delayed on starting construction by a number of years, as delivery of grid connections don’t keep pace with renewable energy deployment – the wheels of bureaucracy are just too slow.” says Rachel Ruffle, CEO for EMEA at RES, an independent renewable energy company. “The time scales for projects across many parts of Europe – from greenfield to the start of construction, whether it’s permits or licenses or planning permission – is about eight years. That's just not urgent enough.”

This is a major issue in many countries, but it is most acute in places where renewable energy potential is concentrated in a region without adequate transmission infrastructure to demand centers. However, smart integration of battery storage at both ends of transmission lines can help increase capacity without building new lines.

German transmission service operator, TransnetBW, has developed?battery-driven “grid boosters”?which do just this. When loads are high, they prevent overloads by automatically storing excess energy behind the bottlenecks in transmission lines. As surges subside, the grid boosters release the energy steadily, increasing utilization.?

Maximizing capabilities of existing infrastructure

Grid boosters can effectively reduce the need to expand transmission grids and help cut redispatch costs, both of which can help control electricity prices for consumers. Crucially, they are dramatically quicker and easier to implement than new transmission lines, plus they have a smaller footprint, and less impact on the environment and local communities.

But it isn’t just physical infrastructure that can help us make better use of existing infrastructure. Developing the capabilities of?grid software?is one of the biggest areas of untapped potential, as software investment is often overlooked in favor of physical infrastructure expansion. Smart software can, for example,?pinpoint and address technical losses,?which can dramatically increase efficiency in some regions.

Developing the capabilities of?grid software?is one of the biggest areas of untapped potential.

As more intelligent grid automation software is adopted, operators will be able to manage grids more dynamically in real-time – while also building in greater safety and security features – thereby using the grid to its full potential and easing pressure to expand hardware infrastructure.

Using data intelligently can also help to reduce costs, save time, and improve sustainability. Xiaohu Tao, Vice President, Business Innovation and Digital, in Energy Networks at E.ON shared the example of using AI analysis of satellite photographs to help E.ON manage the vegetation around overhead power lines. “Over the past year we have managed more than 70,000 kilometers of transmission lines in this way,” he says. “Previously these inspections involved technicians driving vehicles, so we have saved the emissions from that, and we can use the technicians for more valuable work.”?

The power of vision

Digital technologies will support every element of the clean energy systems of the future. In fact, a strong majority of energy infrastructure stakeholders in our survey (67%) believe net zero energy is impossible without digitalization.

Particularly in lower-voltage, distribution grids, digital technologies are expected to bring greater situational awareness, intelligent automation, stronger data insights, and more accurate predictions. Without these capabilities it will be impossible to optimize, protect, and stabilize a grid that has hundreds of participants – prosumers, batteries, small energy farms, electric vehicles, etc.

But none of this is possible without visibility. Ingenuity will not get grids around the need for smart meters and other smart grid infrastructure – without them there will be no real-time data, and no ability to use dozens of ingenious, data-driven solutions to manage the complexity of the future grid.

Currently, but in most of these areas of the low-voltage grid, operators are blind. Once you go beyond major junctions or sub-stations, there are few sensors or feedback loops, as well as few switches and other control systems.

Another example from Xiaohu Tao shows how investing in this kind of equipment, smart meters in this case, can help us use energy more intelligently: “Imagine that four neighbors are charging their vehicles at the same time,” he says, “with granular data from smart meters we can, not only instantly notify the grid so it can respond to this load, but we can also incentivize the fifth, sixth, or seventh neighbors to delay plugging in their cars, offering them a lower rate, and thereby helping to keep loads under control.”

There are enormous potential benefits of more data-driven grids. In India, for example, a fifth of all power generated is lost in the course of transmission and distribution. The Indian government is searching for ways to?reduce these losses by using AI, and to do that they need to install 250 million smart meters, a process that is already well underway.??

The facilitators?–?such as governments, grid companies and regulators?–?need to translate awareness into actions.

Rachel Ruffle, CEO for EMEA at RES, an independent renewable energy company

Our best chance of success

Energy produces?three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, making the energy transition the primary battlefield for the fight against climate change.

“Over recent years, there has been an acceleration in urgency of the energy transition, even more so now that energy costs and energy security are major global issues, and the quickest way to address this is speeding up the roll out of renewables” says Rachel Ruffle. “Governments and the business world are increasingly aware that more needs to be done, that society wants more to be done, and whilst this is focusing the industry on speeding up the transformation of the energy system, the facilitators?– such as governments, grid companies and regulators?– need to translate awareness into actions.”

But this dramatic transformation of one of humankind’s most fundamental, integrated, and intricate systems is a task of epic proportions and formidable complexity. It will take decades of investment, mountains of materials, and the whole careers of millions of people.

The investment is unlikely to slow, as sustainable choices increasingly make good business and political sense, and the cost of greener options falls. Materials are a concern, and the energy transition will need a?more robust supply chain to accelerate further.

But the magic ingredient is the ideas and innovations within all of those careers. That is one powerful, natural resource the world has in abundance, and it represents our best chance of success in revolutionizing the energy system to help preserve our planet.?

August 31, 2022

Picture credits: Siemens AG