Climate Change Drivers for a Single and Smart E.U. Grid

Concerns about the climate effects of, in particular, carbon dioxide have led governments across Europe to introduce incentives to the development of renewable electricity generation. However, the best locations for wind, solar, tidal or wave resource are not uniformly distributed across the continent, and are often in places where connections to the electricity network are weak. If these resources are to be fully utilised, the power grid must be enhanced to allow the energy to be transported to the main centres of demand for electricity. This, in turn, presents some major technical challenges as well as raising commercial and regulatory issues. Very large, integrated electric power systems are highly complex and will become even more so with high penetrations of variable and uncertain power resources such as wind farms. If climate change targets are to be met, electricity users are to continue to experience a reliable supply of electricity and its costs are not be become excessive, renewables must be utilised whenever possible and the complexities of operation of the system must be well managed. This presentation outlines the background to developments in Europe to date of different technologies to accommodate increasing amounts of renewable electricity. It discusses the degree to which the grid can already be said to be ‘smart’ and how much smarter it must become with higher and more uncertain continent-wide transfers of power.