Energy World November 2017

Everything changes – but the electricity systems of Britain and Europe are currently in a period of particularly rapid transition.

Four feature articles discuss different parts of that change – starting with a piece on the evolution of generating plant able to react quickly to UK system imbalances. Then we look at how power-to-gas technologies are starting to take a role in the use of excess electricity generated from renewables – by making hydrogen.

Two more articles cover the growth of data and digital technologies in distributing electricity. Is it possible to limit the rise in global temperatures from climate change to just 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as the Paris Agreement aims for? Possibly, writes Marc Height in a special feature in advance of COP 23, but only with the serious deployment of a range of technologies, including those to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Biofuels – time to phase out the unsustainable ones, says our first energy-for-transport article on page 30. Subsequent pieces cover how charging electric vehicles will impact the electricity grid, and whether the charging infrastructure is itself up to scratch.