Europe is on a complex mission to transform its existing power infrastructure for a decentralized energy future. This major transformation requires a €600 billion investment to facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources in the most reliable, efficient and cost-effective manner. This involves almost 300,000 km of transmission lines, over 10 million km of power lines – 13 times to the moon and back – and 260 million connected customers.
The Energy Transition Challenge
Within 15 years, renewable energy will overtake coal and gas to become the world’s top source of electricity. As the share of electricity produced from variable renewable resources grows, so does the need to integrate these resources into the power grid in the most efficient, reliable and cost-effective manner. The growing share of renewable generation will require a €600 billion investment in a large-scale transformation of the transmission infrastructure to accommodate the new intermittent and geographically diverse sources of power.
Demand for carbon-free electricity is growing. However, carbon emissions from energy use account still for 70% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while those related to electricity approach about 50%. Consequently, the European Commission has enacted policies to curb GHG emissions from the power sector, including regulations requiring the majority of Europe’s electricity to come from renewables by 2050.
Large-scale transmission of electricity requires new approaches to extending and operating the grid.
The transition to a low carbon society by 2050, based on renewables and energy efficiency, implies a transformation in the way that electricity is generated and transmitted. It requires industry to develop and adopt, on a large-scale, new power engineering technologies that will improve the system’s security and flexibility to avoid power outages and inefficiencies, and accommodate wind power cost-efficiently.
The grid faces two main technological challenges in accommodating renewables: location and variability. Wind energy is often produced far away from where it is needed. To transport vast quantities of electricity produced on offshore sites in the North and Baltic Seas over long distances to the consumption areas on the continent, power grid infrastructures need to be upgraded. In addition, wind production is both variable and uncertain, and grid system operators have to make sure they have enough reserves to balance them.
How to realize the potential
The objectives of the Best Paths project are the development and deployment of new technologies facilitating the widespread integration of more offshore and onshore wind power into the European electricity system by 2020 and beyond. Coordinated by Spanish Transmission System Operator – Red Eléctrica de España (REE), this is the biggest European renewable energy demonstration project, benefitting from an EU contribution of over €35 million for a total cost valued at €63 million. The project unites expert partners around five large-scale demonstrations to deliver replicable industrial solutions improving the interconnections, capacity and flexibility of the entire power grid.
260 million European households and businesses are linked to transmission systems by around 10,700 interconnection points and more than 4 million distribution transformers.
EURELECTRIC
Delivering renewable energy over long distances
The focus is to upgrade and repower existing overhead transmission lines to increase their capacity. Given growing difficulties in obtaining permission for new power lines, using innovative materials and geometries for pylons, conductors and insulators will help to keep within the space already used, while allowing for a higher electrical capacity.
Enabling the transmission of significantly more energy than in any existing conventional system, the 3 GW-class super-conductive cables will be another innovation developed and tested within the framework of the project. The Best Paths team is also working on the so-called Voltage Source Converter: a technology that allows for the transfer of energy to congested cities, and for maintenance of security in the system.
Technology of choice
The initiative sets out to simulate links connecting offshore wind farms to improve access to high voltage technology. The enhanced interaction between wind turbine generators and high voltage networks (connecting offshore wind farms to the onshore grid, used to deliver power to households) is of great importance as it represents the technology of choice for bulk transmission over long distances.
Sustainability, Scalability and Replicability
Ultimately, the objective is to ensure interoperability among different solutions and grid components produced by different manufactures. The current lack of compatibility creates monopolies for the manufacturers of equipment and prevents network operators from competitive tendering. The experimental results of Best Paths will address this challenge, showing the scalability of the developed solutions, and benefiting replication across the pan-European transmission network and electricity market.
New European power engineering technologies
With over 10 million km (13 times to the moon and back) of power lines, 298,092 km of transmission lines, 2,400 electricity distribution companies, and 260 million connected customers, the existing infrastructure for electricity transmission and distribution is an increasingly complex and fragile system. As such, successful modernization of the grid requires integrated solutions that reconcile renewable energy development and market integration while ensuring security of supply, fully in line with customer demands for competitiveness. Best Paths addresses this challenge by evaluating the technical feasibility, costs, impacts and benefits of new grid technologies in a variety of real operational environments in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Norway. Developing and testing the performance of each of the five demo-sites provides an essential opportunity to understand the technology, manage operational and financial risk, and experience hands-on multi-partner delivery.
About Best Paths
Thirty-nine partners representing the entire chain of innovation in Europe, from universities and research centers generating new knowledge, and the power industry developing new products, to Transmission Systems Operators (TSOs) and utilities, specifying their need for new industrial solutions, have joined together to deliver a substantial change to the power grid’s capacity and flexibility.
Q&A: Vicente González López
Integrating renewables for cleaner electricity networks
Vicente González López, Coordinator of Best Paths and Head of R&D at the Spanish Transmission System Operator – Red Eléctrica de España (REE) talks about the major challenges in developing network technologies to increase the pan-European capacity for transporting electricity from renewable sources.
Can we integrate large-scale renewable energies for a low carbon economy?
The difficulty is that we are not able to manage the generation capacity of the systems as we have done until now with conventional power plans. The main characteristic of the electrical system is that we have to maintain a balance between generated and consumed electricity. The answer is YES but only if all the relevant actors take up the challenge.
Does the integration of renewables make European energy supply more secure?
For sure, renewable energies can and must contribute more to the security and quality of supply, in accordance with their primordial role within the complete chain of supply. The present levels of security of supply in Europe are better than in any other region all around the world. However, this substitution of conventional power plants by renewables requires new grid services to maintain present levels of supply. We are studying new functionalities in our research project.
How will this approach benefit the consumer?
Our research will help to maximize sustainability at the best possible costs for the industry, investors, suppliers and – ultimately – for consumers. The goal is to develop integrated solutions that will allow for a smooth penetration of renewable energy sources while ensuring an affordable market for electricity consumers.
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