In a series of blogs, Eddie O’Connor will examine how Europe will meet it’s Paris decarbonisation goals.
In this blog post, Eddie discusses the enhanced electricity era of the supergrid following on from the discussion on the economics of the supergrid n Blog Post 5.
The companies (Transmission Service Operators) which are responsible for organising the transmission of electricity also carry out the function of dispatching the various generating plants and system service functions which are necessary to provide a secure and uninterrupted supply of electricity.
They describe their core responsibility as “keeping the lights on”.
My question to these companies is; what changes do you have to make to your operations if you were to supply the electricity needed to meet the current transport and heating energy?
Is “keeping the lights on” an adequate descriptor for the set of activities that need to be performed to meet the increased demand that follows from supplying electricity for all transport and heating?
If Europe were to substitute electricity for the fossils that are currently used to supply heating and transport demand, annual electricity demand in Europe would rise from approximately 3,200 TWh in 2018 to 7,800TWh by 2050. We assume, in arriving at this figure that there will be 1335 TWh of private electricity, generated on both European domestic rooftops and industrial rooftops.
Of course, there would be no point in supplying electricity for heating and transport if the electricity were to be generated from fossil fuels. Renewable energy from wind and solar is available in the quantities required. However, wind is most efficient and more publicly acceptable to build offshore, and solar is most efficiently and effectively generated around the Mediterranean basin.
There are no transmission grids offshore and there is no connection between the two great resource systems of renewable energy. This is something discussed in previous blog posts, where the case for the development of a European SuperGrid has been made.
There is much debate about storage currently. Chemical storage has already found use in short term quick response and other fast responding system services, and hydrogen storage is seen to have high potential for long term storage. Much is made of the fact that the North of Europe can at times have a high-pressure area situated over it and wind generation would not be sufficient to meet demand, for, in certain rare occasions, up to a week at a time.
Without minimising the importance of various forms of electricity storage, it has to be pointed out that storage doesn’t generate any electricity. In fact, no electricity storage technology is 100% efficient. At best, using electricity to obtain hydrogen from water is 75 to 80% efficient and chemical storage is in the range of 95+% efficient. The more hydrogen we manufacture, as distinct from chemical storage, the more wind and solar generation will have to be built.
The question remains: where are the TSOs planning to get the electricity from so that they can meet the increased demand for electricity arising from the complete electrification of heating and transport, while also meeting our Paris 2050 goals?
The unfortunate answer to this question is that they are not planning for this enhanced electricity future. They are organised on a national basis or a limited co-ordinated grouping of near nations. Their activities are co-ordinated at a European level by the previously discussed monopoly entitled ENTSO-E, and this grouping has no plan to build the grids needed to decarbonise our existing electricity demand, not to mention the increases in demand that will emerge from electrifying transport and heating.
They are trusted by the organs of the EU and are used to adjudicate on which projects get funding from European institutions such as DG Energy and DG Research.
The most urgent task for the new Commission is:
- Bring forward a directive which de-monopolises the European transmission system. Allow the private sector to do what it is great at. The private sector is always ready to invent the next technology, to deploy the cash, and to project manage whatever task is needed.
As part of the planning to capture the offshore wind which will link with Mediterranean solar, it is necessary to introduce an all Europe Regulator, and to provide sufficient incentives to attract the private sector. This will allow the private sector to innovate and develop the proposed SuperGrid solution to facilitate the enhanced electricity era.