There’s no transition without transmission
What is the ‘Green Transition’?
The ‘Green Transition’.
A polysemous word, that means“A shift towards economically sustainable growth, and an economy that is not based on fossil fuels and overconsumption of natural resources.” according to Finish Government (the top hit on Google — shoutout to their SEO team for that one);
The term can be first attributed to US trade union leader Tony Mazzacchi, who in 1993 pleaded for a “Superfund for workers” to provide financial support and opportunities for higher education for workers displaced by environmental protection policies.
The term’s meaning and popularity has changed a lot since then.
As of September 10th 2023, the term was searched more often than 2013 viral hit sensation “What does the Fox say”! It begs the question, what would the fox say about the ‘Green Transition’?
(Out-trending a decade old viral hit is no mean feat, especially for an economic idea.)
Perhaps he’d have similar views to Chris Bowen, Australia’s Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister, who said that “There’s no transition without transmission”.
Electricity Transmission
Mr Bowen was referring to the approval processes for transmission projects in Australia, but these problems are not unique to Australia.
In the UK, developers of renewable energy infrastructure are being told they have to wait up to 15 years before they can plug their projects into the grid.
As of July 2023, there were 1,300 clean power projects with planning permission awaiting construction in the UK, with the majority pointing to delays in securing grid infrastructure as the cause of delay.
To keep the 1.5°C target alive IRENA estimates that the renewable energy generated globally must more than triple from 3,000 GW today to more than 10,000 GW by 2030.
The UK already has around 72GW of connected renewable generation, and a pipeline of over 350GW.
Delays in getting renewable energy grid connections are argueably biggest obstacle to the rollout of renewable energy. As Matthias Taft (CEO of BayWa RE) explained, “We have a permit to build, but the physical grid connection is not available”.
What’s causing the delays?
There are two main reasons such a backlog has developed in obtaining grid connections; one is the grid infrastructure itself, and other is the sheer number of applications that are being made.
1. Grid Infrastructure
There’s insufficient grid infrastructure to meet the needs of the changing energy system. It is estimated that 80 million km of new grid lines are needed by 2050, more than enough to replace the entire global grid today.
Investment is also needed to
- Build greater redundancy in the distribution grid (due to greater variable power sources).
- Enable bi-directional flow of electricity,
- Enhancing remote monitoring.
2. Grid Connection Applications
The second issue is the protracted time in obtaining grid connections.
Many developers submit ‘speculative’ early applications so they can be listed before the wait time for grid connection increases further. This has resulted in the number of grid applications in the UK quadrupling in the past for years, further exacerbating the problem.
This is reflected in the fact that of the connection requests submitted between 2000 and 2017, typically only a fifth of projects were built.
Many developers only have limited information about grid capacity (or the ability to accept a new project) prior to submitting the application. Potential issues and additional costs only emerge when operators carry out a study on the possible connection.
These problems are known to people of influence. For example, in March 2023 it emerged that Rishi Sunak chose to personally pay for a private upgrade to the local grid to enable a swimming pool at his home to be heated. No doubt 15 years was too long for a Prime Minister to wait to enjoy a warm swim in the Winter.
What’s being done about it?
National Grid ESO (Britain’s electricity system operator) has promised new reforms that could slash up to 10 years from the current waiting time. The plan?
To tell developers to “get on, get back or get out of the energy queue” so that they stop impeding projects that are ready to generate clean electricity for the grid.
National Grid has also committed up to £40 billion in investments over a five-year period ending in 2026. Around £29 billion (70% of the total) will go directly toward decarbonizing energy infrastructure across its UK and US operations.
However, the government and Ofgem estimate that £170–210bn will need to be invested in the grid by 2050 to achieve our net zero and energy goals.
Where do we go from here?
While the ‘Green Transition’ rightly focuses on changing how we generate electricity, overcoming the intermittency of sources like wind and solar remains a challenge. However, solutions exist to smooth out their variability.
- Building large-scale battery storage to capture excess renewable energy when production is high and discharge it when output falls
- Increasing the renewable generation capacity helps ensure sufficient supply even during periods of lower wind and solar production
Pursuing both increased storage and capacity can provide the flexibility needed to accommodate renewables’ natural variability.
Therefore, upgrading grid infrastructure is key to enable the integration of renewable energy sources. Without investments to modernize and expand, our electricity grid will remain confined to the existing infrastructure.
And what does the existing infrastructure look like?
This electricity flow chart shows the flow of electricity in the UK in 2022, from production to consumption. As you can see, electricity produced from natural gas is still almost triple that of wind, wave, and solar.
As Marlon Dey (head of research for the UK and Ireland at Aurora Energy Research) told the FT back in June 2023,
“There is only one solution, to physically reinforce and build more grid. If you can’t do that quickly enough, then you can’t build the renewable power we need and can’t get away from fossil fuels fast enough. And then you can’t decarbonise fast enough”.
What would the fox say? I imagine it would think Marlon Dey was on the money.
