Renewed commitment to green energy grid

Europe can source all its electricity from renewables but only if it reaches a social consensus on how to build the grid. The Renewables Grid Initiative’s Antonella Battaglini spoke at Energy Ireland.

Making her first visit to Ireland, Antonella Battaglini pointed out that Arthur Guinness had taken out a 9,000-year lease on his brewery in Dublin. “We need to start trusting the future if we really want to build it,” she commented. Battaglini is a founder and Executive Director of the Renewables Grid Initiative.

The Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) published its roadmap for 2050 in 2009 with assistance from PwC. The roadmap stated that it was possible to achieve 100 per cent renewable electricity in Europe and North Africa.

Battaglini still agrees with those findings four years on but emphasised: “The grid remains one of the bottlenecks that has to be developed if we really want to see a massive expansion for renewables.”

Signs of progress included the new TEN-E guidelines which facilitate the building up of cross-border interconnection, the €5.1 billion Connecting Europe facility and the development of smart grid technology although the United States was well ahead of Europe in this area.

“Investments in renewables have been incredibly positive despite the recession,” she said. “We have seen a decrease in renewables expansion last year but the trend is still very positive. And so we should get the confidence that – despite the lack of 2030 targets for renewable [energy] – there is a trend that we need to believe in and we need to invest towards realising this expansion.”

The cost of renewable technologies was decreasing “exponentially” in line with International Energy Agency targets. Interconnection and greater renewable penetration resulted in a greater need for convergences in energy prices, which may be facilitated by smart technologies in the future.

“Renewables come in a variety of forms but almost all of them share the same challenge: they are unreliable,” she added. “To deal with reliability, we need to think about a grid that goes beyond the national border.”

In a scenario for 2030, designed by the TradeWind project, output from wind energy in the Netherlands would vary by up to 90 per cent if only Dutch generators were used. This variability would be reduced to 10-50 per cent when interconnection with all other member states was factored in. This is still a “considerable technological challenge but definitely much easier to tackle”.

Consensus

Building grids is not easy and there is “no consensus whatsoever in society” on how to build grids or indeed how much grid to build. Some projects that could be built in 2-3 years stretch out over decades due to successful opposition from local residents.

This opposition often results in grid projects being developed in environmentally sensitive areas, which then leads to objections from environmental NGOs. A third complicating factor is that regulators want the grid to be built in the most cost-effective way.

For the first time, RGI has provided a European forum in which NGOs and transmission system operators (TSOs) can come together to find solutions. The aim of the forum is to develop the “necessary grids built in time and in line with environmental objectives and with people’s concerns.”

RGI also wants to promote the “effective integration” of renewable electricity sources into the European grid, not only from utility-scale generation but also from distributed generation, which requires an increasing deployment of smart technologies.

Public opposition to grids is common across Europe and the Americas and even in China despite the false perception that the Chinese authorities can build “anything, anywhere, anytime.” Delays caused by opposition increase the risks for investors.

The reasons for public opposition need to be understood if that opposition is to be properly dealt with. Six common reasons were as follows:

• the environment;

• economic impacts;

• health;

• landscape distortion;

• incomplete information; and

• the trustworthiness of authorities and investors.

This resulted in three types of doubts:

• why do we need grids?

• where is the best location?

• what is the best technology?

Those doubts can only be overcome by an “intense and constant” dialogue with stakeholders. The first members of RGI came in for criticism, by fellow NGOs or TSOs, for engaging with each other. They were perceived to be “working with the enemy.”

Battaglini now finds a lot of trust and more willingness to take joint positions. The ‘Connected=Empowered’ document explains the need for new grids in plain language. The European Grid Declaration (November 2011) was a major achievement and set out seven principles for grid development that respected the environment and populations.

This stimulated dialogue and resulted in support from the European Commission which is funding four pilots. In 2013, RGI started to set up ‘learning groups’ to share its expertise with non-members. These groups seek to improve the understanding of grid expansion, cabling and the marine environment.

Europe had “huge opportunities” for the expansion of offshore renewables but many conflicting interests were also involved. She concluded by calling for a “master vision” for the future, akin to that of Arthur Guinness who went ahead with his plans despite probably having some doubts.

“Do we understand where society wants to go?” she asked, “because only by understanding where society wants to go can we get the support of society and go in that direction.”

Speaking afterwards, she noted that the main barriers to the development of renewables were “lack of political leadership, lack of clarity [and a] lack of willingness to really engage with stakeholders.” Battaglini added: “If I have to sum it up, we do not have a vision. We talk about 2050 but nobody is able to describe what 2050 is.”

Dynamic pricing in electricity would mean that the customer can “benefit from the fluctuation and use the electricity when it is cheaper” while producers could sell electricity when it is more expensive.

A range of examples of best practice are available on www.renewables-grid.eu