In response to the challenge to act quickly to reduce the GreenHouse Gas emissions that are increasing temperatures on the planet and increasing the intensity and frequency of storms, wildfires and floods, we need to begin to engineer a transition of the grids that supply electricity.
A series of articles in the Economist indicate the ability to use renewables for the lion’s share of a grid’s supply, coupled with the fact that renewables have been made cheap and are getting yet cheaper, is the basis of a decarbonisation strategy all but universally accepted by those determined to stabilise the climate.
Make the power on electric grids emissions-free, cheap and copious. Start electrifying all processes that now require fossil fuels—such as powering cars, or heating homes and steel foundries—where electrification is clearly possible. It does not deliver everything that is needed. But it delivers a lot. (Electrifying Everything Does Not Solve the Climate Crisis, but It Is a Great Start, 2022)
Lithium-ion batteries, the cost of which has crashed due to a mixture of innovation and economies of scale, have provided by far the greatest recent advances in “grid scale” electric storage.
After a 90% decline in the cost of battery packs between 2010 and 2021, reckons Citi, a bank, America is now seeing more megawatts of capacity added to its grid in the form of batteries than in the form of natural-gas combined-cycle turbines. Enormous banks of such batteries already provide up to four hours of dispatchable power to California’s grid operator on demand. When Californian utilities asked companies to come up with technologies for an eight-hour buffer the winning bids all used lithium. (Decarbonisation of Electric Grids Reliant on Renewables Requires Long-Duration Energy Storage, 2022)
Saul Griffith offers an optimistic—but realistic and feasible—action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment that is to electrify everything. His book, Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future. Published by MIT Press, it makes the point that what we cannot afford are plans that make no progress because we are wasting time arguing over these issues before we begin, or because we are over-investing in technologies that can’t scale up sufficiently.
There will be trade-offs. More nuclear means fewer batteries but more public resistance and, most likely, higher costs. More solar and wind means more land use. What we cannot afford are plans that make no progress because we are wasting time arguing over these issues before we begin, or because we are over-investing in technologies that can’t scale up sufficiently. The real test, given the urgency of our climate situation, should be, “Is it ready to go to scale today?” We need to act now. (Griffith, 2021, p73)
Fereidoon Sioshansi writes in a recent book, “Variable Generation, Flexible Demand” that “we need to automate things, essentially bypassing the customers.”
New der-enabled smart grids are an excellent way of doing this. Customers can set preferences as to what they need charged up and when.
as they do in a new scheme offered by Octopus Energy Group, a British provider. After that they let the system do as it wants—an approach the company says can, among other things, lower the cost of charging an electric vehicle (ev) by 75%. Such savings by consumers equate, at some point, with savings for the suppliers in terms of electricity they did not have to ship down congested transmission lines. (Getting the Most Out of Tomorrow's Grid Requires Digitisation and Demand Response, 2022)
Dr. Jonathan Foley, a climate & environmental scientist, writer, speaker, and the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions comments that “quick wins” can come from rapid and cost-effective improvements in efficiency.
There are enormous opportunities to be more efficient with electricity.
(especially in buildings and industry), food (where ~30–40% is wasted globally), industrial processes, transportation (higher fuel efficiency, more alternative transportation), and buildings (improved building envelopes, building automation, and reduced refrigerant leaks). In addition, we will have to rapidly shut down fossil fuel energy sources and deploy renewable energy systems across the planet as quickly as possible. But given the enormous physical infrastructure and capital involved, this will inevitably take time. Even the most aggressive scenarios of this energy transition require the 2020s and 2030s to complete. (Foley, 2021)
Jackie Forrest, executive director of the ARC Energy Research Institute and co-host of the ARC Energy Ideas podcast comments that while the combined home solar and battery systems are still rare, sales are starting to increase in places such as Texas and California. These states have suffered from extended power outages from extreme weather. Instead of sitting in the dark, people with home solar and battery systems can reliably use their own electricity, day and night.
While the two states have been experiencing most of the extreme weather-related power outages lately, climate change is expected to make these disruptive events more frequent and widespread over the coming decades. So to ensure safe, reliable and affordable power, it is likely that more homeowners will want to install solar panels and battery systems in the future. (Forrest, 2022)
Can you Match the Description and the Acronym?
A quick look at the acronyms used in these articles indicates that the specialized knowledge of engineers, technologists, technicians, and trades people will be crucial to rapid implementation of these systems.
References
Decarbonisation of electric grids reliant on renewables requires long-duration energy storage. (2022, June 23). The Economist. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2022/06/23/decarbonisation-of-electric-grids-reliant-on-renewables-requires-long-duration-energy-storage
Electrifying everything does not solve the climate crisis, but it is a great start. (2022, June 23). The Economist. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2022/06/23/electrifying-everything-does-not-solve-the-climate-crisis-but-it-is-a-great-start
Foley, J. (2021, February 20). To Stop Climate Change, Time is as Important as Tech. GlobalEcoGuy.org. Retrieved July 11, 2022, from https://globalecoguy.org/to-stop-climate-change-time-is-as-important-as-tech-1be4beb7094a
Forrest, J. (2022, May 23). Opinion: Blackouts could drive a return to home solar. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-blackouts-solar-panels-electricity/#_=_
Getting the most out of tomorrow's grid requires digitisation and demand response. (2022, June 23). The Economist. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2022/06/23/getting-the-most-out-of-tomorrows-grid-requires-digitisation-and-demand-response
Griffith, S. (2021). Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future. MIT Press.
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