The need for a deep decarbonization of the energy sector and the associated opportunities are now increasingly recognized, with fossil fuel projects simultaneously becoming more risky business propositions. With large-scale wind and solar generation now being the cheapest options in many parts of the world, a deeply renewable electricity sector is predestined to become the main driver of this transition. Yet, misconceptions abound. In part, this can be traced back to the complexity of the electricity sector and the processes involved in its transformation, located at the intersection between grid design and operation, markets and regulations. This book is intended to provide some clarity in this matter, by taking the reader from the conceptual foundations of a deeply decarbonized electricity sector in part 1 to new strategies for the renewable energy transition in part 3. Insights into essential building blocks are provided in part 2 where the role of transmission, distributed generation, smart grids, demand response, storage, and forecasting are covered in some detail. The synthesis part 3 explores the connections between the mobility and electricity sectors, the design of renewable economies, and possible roadmaps for a world-wide transition to a deeply decarbonized economy. While striving to be technically rigorous, this book is also meant as an entertaining and inspiring read for researchers and advanced students, experts with the electric power industry, and decision makers in politics, industry and finance.
Inspec keywords: power generation economics; renewable energy sources; smart power grids; building integrated photovoltaics; demand side management; load regulation; power markets; power distribution economics
Other keywords: renewable energy grid integration; sustainability perils; electric loads; renewable energy transition; demand response technologies; Building renewable economies; Mexico; sustainable economy; smart grids; high-renewable penetration; maximize social welfare and innovation; clean electricity sector; renewable energy generation; distribution grid; Effective market design; storage regulations
Subjects: General control topics; Physics literature and publications; Power system management, operation and economics; Buildings (energy utilisation); Power system control; Energy resources; General electrical engineering topics; General and management topics; Control of electric power systems
The transformation of electricity sectors has been occurring over the last two decades because of deregulation and liberalization of electricity markets on the one hand and a greater interest in renewable energy technologies on the other. Although being largely independent phenomena, renewables and markets are nowadays closely intertwined, calling for novel approaches to grid management and expansion planning. At present, with renewables reaching records lows in electricity pricing [3,4], the main concern has shifted from economics to resource variability and adequacy, predictability, and grid -friendliness. As conventional generators slowly wheat, often fighting a fierce rearguard battle, new roles have to be found for existing generating capacity, and their potentially grid -stabilizing capacities have to be appropriately remunerated in the context of a complex yet short-sighted electricity market. Although social progress traditionally lags far behind technological advances, improved empirical insights into human behavior, coupled with opportunities provided by information technology, may in principle pave the way out of the current planetary crisis. The replacement of fossil transportation fuels by sustainable alternatives is still in its infancy, problems related to very high penetrations of renewables in the electric grid are comparatively minor and can be solved by a combination of increased transmission capacities, modest amounts of storage, demand response technologies, and a smarter management of the grid.
This chapter examines the technical and economic feasibility of transitioning large-scale electricity supply -demand systems to 100% renewable electricity (100RElec). By showing how 100RElec can satisfy the key criteria of reliability, security and affordability, and by arguing that a rapid transition is technically and economically possible this chapter refutes the principal myths propagated by critics of 100RElec.
In this chapter, the author has noted the crucial role of electricity in climate protection scenarios and attempted to answer why electricity possess this crucial role. The author has argued that electricity in itself can be seen as a climate protection opportunity - and thus a sustainability opportunity.
A large deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) in the power system will not only require the development of key technologies (e.g. batteries or hydrogen), but also ensure that the transmission infrastructure provides the means to share flexibility across regions and countries. This chapter describes challenges and opportunities for the energy transmission infrastructure in Europe in terms of: (i) planning the energy transition of the power sector under a long-term perspective while considering short-term challenges, (ii) the role of transmission as an enabler to transnational balancing source for renewables and its cost-benefit implications, (iii) gas as a key flexible provider to balance RES but with challenges on maintaining the gas infrastructure relevant under climate targets and (iv) the perspective of balancing exporter countries on its policy and strategies to deliver clean exports.
In this chapter, an overview of the benefits and challenges of distributed generation (DG) is given, followed by an overview of the status of DG in different parts of the world. The remainder of this chapter is dedicated to an in-depth study of particular country case, the one of Mexico.
This chapter focuses on technological innovations in electric power infrastructure and their enabling potential for the integration of variable generation resources, electric vehicles (EVs), and microgrids. Many of the innovations described in this chapter were driven by evolving technical and economic constraints that long predated renewable grids: factors other than clean energy have dominated problem solving and investment in new electric power hardware, software, and design strategies over the past several decades. In the context of the renewable energy transition, however, some of these rather esoteric niche technologies take on a new relevance and interest for a broader community of researchers and practitioners.
The mismatch between electrical supply and demand, both in space and time, presents a growing problem found worldwide as customers seek reliable energy. This chapter describes various technologies for electricity customers (demand) to curtail or shift electrical loads (response) to balance electricity demand with supply
Energy storage is a key element in the renewable energy transition, particularly at high levels of penetration. However, for storage solutions to gain traction it is vital for regulations, incentives and remuneration schemes to be appropriately designed. Though generally agreed upon to be a vital ingredient for the energy transition, storage developers still face a number of hurdles to make a clear business case. Even though commercially viable opportunities have been shown to exist, a clear long-term vision has to be laid out in individual countries and through international collaboration. Suitable storage technologies abound, and solutions once thought to be marginal are now moving into the mainstream. The cost reduction potential in most technologies is considerable, and it is likely that these reductions can be realized in a relatively short term if an appropriate market pull exists. To create such conditions is of course mainly the task of policymakers, but the participation of businesses as well as the civil society is also very valuable. Appropriate stimuli for storage may allow to increase the momentum of the renewable energy transition, direly needed to meet the <1.5 degree goal, and allow storage to become a main driver of sustainable economic development.
Wind and solar PV forecasting is a key tool that can help in the improvement of efficiency, reliability, and operation of electric power systems with a high penetration of variable REs. Although there are a large number of applications of forecasting in power systems, there is still a need to improve the integration of forecasts into different stages or procedures, and even more so, considering the strong increase in installed capacity expected in the coming years. Wind and solar PV power forecasting is relevant for several tasks within power systems and has both technical and economic impacts.
For the first two decades of the twentieth century, worldwide influences impelled powerful and complex reforms in energy regulatory structures across different countries regardless of its development status. Governments from all over the world began to experiment a reorganization of public utilities, introduction of competition, the strengthening or development of independent regulatory agencies and the re -regulation of rules in the electricity industry. In the first part of this work, we will analyze the nature of the changes that give way to a change in those regulatory strategies and models. In the second part, we will use the application of the regulatory reform to a single industry, the Mexican Electricity Industry.
This paper will survey the recent history of renewable electricity and its impact on power markets and energy policy, with a focus on markets in the US. The discussion will highlight the crossroad at which the industry now finds itself. The industry may be forced to embrace the market implications of a renewable-centric energy policy that, in equilibrium, would result in more volatile and ultimately higher average electricity costs. The rapid influx of renewable capacity that is being layered on top of already adequately resourced systems implies a potentially growing divide between declining wholesale energy prices, and end -use retail rates that must include the costs of the excess capacity.
Innovations in the mobility and electricity sectors are increasingly leading to interdependencies, resulting in so-called “sector coupling.” This can lead to substantial welfare gains, but only if managed properly as most of the potential lies exactly at the interface of the two sectors. In order to avoid suboptimal coupling and for the potential of sector coupling to be fully exploited, a holistic approach that steps away from the traditional sector-specific approach to regulation is needed. This chapter describes the institutional and technological transformations shaping the mobility and electricity sectors, and shows how these changes can be traced back to the same three global megatrends: decarbonization, digitalization, and deregulation. Using the coherence framework, we then argue that there should be a certain degree of alignment between the technological advancements, located at the interface of the electricity and mobility sectors, on the one hand, and the prevailing institutions on the other hand. Institutions can be an enabling or an inhibiting factor to sector coupling, and unfortunately, without a holistic approach to regulation, the latter will be the more likely outcome.
Climate change is a global crisis that will pose irreversible damage to humankind and the earth that we inhabit. A 100% renewable* grid-coupled with other solutions in the transportation, agriculture, and other sectors-must be achieved as quickly as possible if we are to save our treasured ecosystems and preserve the planet for generations to come. However if people struggle in poverty, climate change won't be a priority. And if policymakers are not bought in due to short-term thinking and a laser focus on maintaining their position of power, climate change won't be priority. For those leaders that are willing to pursue renewables in their area to grow local climate wealth, a holistic industrial strategy is needed in order to lift all up in the economy and foster the next generation of innovation. This chapter outlines how renewables create social welfare, why industry clusters are important to grow wealth, and the elements of clean energy industry clusters that work together to create high-road jobs.
A decarbonized electric grid can be understood for practical purposes as a grid that is beyond 80% clean in terms of CO2 emissions associated. A proposed way of achieving deep decarbonization is through electric systems running 100% on renewable energy. The complexity of transitioning to a fully decarbonized economy requires multiple coordinated efforts from industry, governments, academia, and society to ensure a rapid and just transition, commensurate with our current climate crisis. From a return-on-investment point of view, educating about climate change has been demonstrated to reduce carbon emissions, in some cases in a similar capacity as other strategies such as the adoption of EVs and rooftop solar photovoltaic.The goal of this chapter is to highlight transition elements required to take place in different regions of the world, as well as a selection of technical, economic, and societal hurdles in our quest toward a clean energy transition worldwide. This paper focus on the supply side by planning a clean turnover of the existing grid infrastructure and replacing aging and polluting electricity generators, an element on the demand side often missed in the discussion of electricity is energy efficiency. The International Energy Agency, as part of its Sustainable Development, places efficiency measures as one of the most significant drivers to achieve drastic CO2 emissions reductions, along with renewable energy technologies. The expected investments in end uses also scale accordingly, with efficiency measures requiring the larger investment share by 2050, and placed into smart buildings, manufacturing processes, transportation, etc. Other models show that between energy efficiency and renewable energy, these can achieve almost the entirety of a reduction down to 9.7 GT/year in 2050.