Hardware based electricity grid stability
What supporting investments will we need to make to allow the electricity grid to run with a higher percentage of renewables. Without them our green electricity targets will not be met.
This blog was previously published as "More renewables are coming - but that's not the interesting bit". We have updated and republished it, to include some recent news flow around the growing grid interconnection challenge. This republication is to coincide with the upcoming publication of our blog on software based electricity grid stability solutions.
Summary: As the percentage of renewable electricity generation on the grid increases, the way we store and use electricity will need to change and change dramatically. This will be a massive disruption to the existing system.
Why this is important: This is our attempt to start to identify where the very real investment opportunities lie in the electricity systems of the future. We start with how you can invest in an electricity grid that enables more renewables to happen. Why? In part because this is where some really interesting investment opportunities can be found. But there is another reason - without these investments in the grid, we will never achieve our renewable targets. It's that simple.
The big theme: From an investing perspective, as well as the obvious question as to how big will wind and solar become, there is a much more interesting question - what supporting investments will we need to make to allow the electricity grid to run with a higher percentage of renewables. This is going to be a massive investment theme even if we don't hit 100% renewables.
The Detail
This blog is the first part of a series of blogs on how we can better prepare our electricity grid to cope with the expected surge in renewable (wind & solar) electricity generation we expect over the coming decade. We don't think this topic gets the attention it deserves. Partly this is because its technically complex (which we hope the blog series will help to solve), but its also because for most investors and sustainability professionals, its not high on their agenda. We think it should be.
Since we first published this blog, a few things have changed. Sadly some not for the better. First up, we got some more data from the US on what are known as grid connection queues. This is the amount of new power generation and energy storage projects waiting for transmission connection approvals. In the spirit of a picture is worth a thousand words ....
