The weakest point of the green transformation is the outdated power grid. Problems with the grid can result in forced shutdown of panels and wind turbines, the world will lose up to 2,000 terawatt-hours of wind and solar energy, according to a report by the International Energy Agency, which examined how countries are coping with the growth of renewable generation in their energy mix.
That’s roughly as much as was produced last year in China and the US, the two countries that generate the most renewable energy in the world.
Much of this missing energy production would be lost due to so-called curtailment, when operators disconnect renewable energy producers for fear of overloading the grid.
If wind and solar energy cannot be integrated effectively into the world’s energy grids, this could lead to a 20 percent smaller reduction in CO2 emissions in the energy sectorif fossil fuels fill the demand gap, the IEA said.
A difficult challenge
The report highlights the challenge of transitioning the world from fossil fuels to renewable resources. While gas and coal-fired power plants can be built anywhere, renewable power plants are placed where the sun and wind are strongest, sometimes far from population centers. This requires additional resources to transmit energy to the grid and manage the balance between supply and demand.
Power grids also require greater investment to scale up. The additional generation that could be built in the coming years could ultimately wait for approval from network operators who will not be able to cope with the increased supply.
The capacity of electricity generation projects waiting to be connected to the grid in selected markets / Bloomberg
Nothing else is as important as network modernization
For all those who want to fight climate change, Modernizing the outdated networks that deliver energy to homes and businesses should be considered a top priority for everyone in the US and Europe, Generation Investment Management says. Generation estimates that the speed of energy transformation nothing else will be as important as the modernization of the power grid.
Generation stated in its annual Sustainability Trends Report that achieving this goal will require construction of new power lines and installation of digital controllers to increase efficiency.
Renewable energy installations are waiting to be connected
Generation says the rapid growth of renewables, combined with the plummeting cost of power generation, has caught grid operators, utilities and their regulators off guard. Most have failed to build the necessary transmission networks to handle the new, more distributed flows of electricity.
New renewable energy projects have to wait years to be connected to the electricity grid in Europe and the US, which threatens to slow the deployment of renewable energy. And there is no sign that this impasse will be resolved any time soon. The amount of power in the queue for connection has increased by 10 percent over the past two years, according to BloombergNEF data.
Meanwhile, to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the world will need to triple its 2023 level of spending on power networks by the middle of the next decade, BNEF estimates.
