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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Maintaining a stable electricity grid during the energy transition
8/5/2024
8 min read
Feature
Renewable power sources impose many new demands on electricity grids built around large dispatchable point power generation sources, such as coal-fired power plants. Grid investment and expansion are not keeping pace with variable renewable energy deployment and the phase-out of dispatchable power capacity, creating associated risk to sensitive supply demand management needs, argues Debo Adams, Studies Manager, International Centre for Sustainable Carbon.*
The modern world relies on access to affordable, dependable power, delivered by a secure and robust electricity grid network. Grids have traditionally been based on large, dispatchable point power generation sources. Globally there are more than 80mn km of grid network, and it is expanding by 2.3mn km/y with repair, replacement and upgrade required as well as expansion.
Electricity supply and demand must always be balanced. System stability requires constant equilibrium between power generation and consumption, even as demand fluctuates. When demand exceeds supply, such as when a power plant fails, the associated drop in system frequency can result in widespread problems if not managed appropriately. If system frequency is not restored within a limited time window (typically nine minutes) power plants operational on the system can enter controlled shutdown as a protection mechanism. If system frequency falls further, system collapse may occur, with associated loss of energy to the entire system.
During the 2021 Winter Storm Uri, the US’ Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was four minutes from complete system collapse. Almost half its power generation was lost, narrowly avoiding complete system failure with associated catastrophic impact on the region and its population, which would have taken weeks to restore. As it was, there was power failure to five million people with a further 11 million impacted by power interruptions. There were 246 attributed deaths and an economic impact of around $200bn.