Global renewable energy-grid project: integration of renewable energies over HVDC and centralized storage

The global challenges of energy and environment can be handled through a local, regional or even a national approach. You need a global perspective and a much broader vision, a global grid for renewable energy [GREG]. A transmission system for high voltage DC [HVDC] must be created, storage facilities serve as the majority of electrical power transport medium, GREG needed with centralized energy installed. And perhaps most importantly, a group of socio political supervision institutions of all nations of the world must network and also seamlessly manage physical grid.

The obstacles to such a global shift to technical, economic and socio-political, socio-political challenges that will be used to categorize hardest. As those demonstrated researchers at the Stanford University, that appropriate renewable energy resources are available, to the planet makes, but still need a detailed and comprehensive proposal for a global energy grid shape at: regional planners need to combine their efforts before this can be achieved. Likewise must the full and clear rules as pay I produced for a global energy grid. This would require, brings together top energy administrators at each participating nation under an umbrella organization at the United Nations.

After a brief overview of the energy sector along with political obstacles, we offer technical suggestions on how a global grid could be implemented. HVDC transmission is recommended as a clear choice for the efficient and reliable long-distance delivery of electrical energy 24.07.52. And centralized storage mega plants are proposed for the balance of supply and demand in a network mostly intermittent sources.

Economy

If we want to tackle the rapidly deteriorating climate by fossil fuel power plants, creation is critical enough grid one globally for renewable energy, in order to justify our highest priority. The United States, for example, in its highway system, sensible investing from the 1950s. The rapid growth of the US economy, centred on road transport can after the second world war directly attributable to this motorway infrastructure. Also, you can associate the "dot-com" boom of the nineteen nineties directly to the wired and wireless global electronic highway. We need not be surprised, whether our economies can afford that with GREG. We must recognize that the world economy would actually expand and are therefore stronger.

With today's sluggish economy and massive public debt it can trust for all Nations to GREG with urgency be questionable. Therefore a mixture of public and private investment would be needed to implement the project. All Nations must create an environment for renewable raw materials to develop and their respective components of the transmission network to carry responsibility and commitment. As well as motorway networks for the transportation of people and products in the creation of the national and global economies are and belong to the public, so must be the power supply for the transmission of electrical energy in the public domain. While the war machines destroy economies, GREG would create economies around the world, requires only a fraction of households now reserved for sophisticated, expensive weapons of war.

Construction requires comprehensive analysis of its socio economic benefits of global, high-voltage, high-power-grid [GREG]. Increased electrical reliability and efficiency should be included as quantifiable benefits. However, if we are to global warming and CO2 emissions, the design alternatives to thermal emission units not in monetary units, which are evaluated by a handful of bankers manipulated should the challenges then. Since GREG Eventuallfy would reduce the energy costs for all Nations, which projected cost of electricity for all consumers would decline significantly in the long run.

Public funds for GREG must be hashed in the halls of national Governments and in the boardrooms of banks of developing world out. Remember that the US interstate highway system built by a special gasoline tax was financed by a trust fund. A similar approach would be at the level of the United Nations with a global "GREG Trust Fund" built on taxes for carbon rendered content of all fossil fuels produced. Furthermore, could a small [1-2 per cent] global tax on all weapons produced is collected.

Management and regulation

The most formidable obstacles to the creation of GREG lie in the socio political sphere. But company deeply invested in the fossil energy will vote against the amendment. Top energy administrators must give priority, social responsibility, not to maximise ROI, if you plan the transition to renewable energy. Policy makers need rules based on long-term goals in the short term while acknowledging potential conflicts between the regional operators and between producers and consumers. Right-of-ways, electricity markets and prices are the varied interests of the producers, utilities, network operators and prosumer [customers with own wind and solar generators] recognition takes into account.

All countries need to establish after a domestic RE-grid, be a balance between national and global interests. Power-sharing agreements, placing the transmission interconnects, security issues and reliability issues all are important. The extent at which rich countries, developing countries will support, must also be set up. Here the basis for supervision and dispute not biased is resolution by an international panel to a particular nation as an organization of the United Nations renewable energy.

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Europe divided on security of supply, such as renewable energies is growing

Germany, France and the U.K. are following nations from Spain to Greece in developing programs called capacity mechanisms to pay utilities to keep plants on standby from as early as 2016. The European Commission instead plans a single market by the end of the year. Supply and demand in 15 markets was for the first time linked today through a daily auction.

Europe’s power market relied on intermittent wind and solar output for a record 7.4 percent of generation in 2012, a share poised to reach 18 percent by 2020, according to Energy Brainpool GmbH & Co. KG., a Berlin-based consultant. The renewable energy boom cut profitable hours at coal and gas-fired plants and IHS Inc. estimates that as much as 60 percent of the region’s gas capacity isn’t covering costs and may be at risk of closure by 2016.

“Capacity mechanisms are popping up like mushrooms all over Europe,” David Viduna, head of long-term origination at Prague-based utility CEZ AS, said in an interview in Vienna on Jan. 29. “The point is that all those efforts need to be harmonized” because payments in one country affect the competitiveness of plants in neighboring countries, he said.

Preventing Blackouts

Nations are seeking to prevent blackouts as utilities plan the biggest-ever wave of shutdowns of unprofitable power plants. As much as 110 gigawatts of gas-fired capacity probably will shut in the next three years, according to IHS, a researcher based in Englewood, Colorado. One gigawatt is enough to power about 2 million European homes.

U.K. utilities from Centrica Plc to SSE Plc will be able to bid in an auction this year to offer backup power plants from 2018 at the lowest possible cost, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

“We need more generation,” Michael Fallon, U.K.’s energy minister, said Jan. 21 in an interview. “We’re losing a fifth of our capacity over the next 10 years.”

Even with 58 nuclear reactors designed to operate 24 hours a day, France doesn’t have enough capacity to meet peak winter demand. Europe’s second-biggest power user may have to import almost 3,600 megawatts during cold snaps this winter, according to RTE, Electricite de France SA’s grid unit. There’s a “moderate risk of supply shortages,” the network manager said in a Nov. 7 report.

Guaranteeing Supply

“France is convinced of the need” to take action to prevent blackouts, Robert Durdilly, president of the Union Francaise de l’Electricite, which represents power producers and distributors, said Jan. 29 in an interview.

From 2016, suppliers without enough capacity to meet the highest peak in demand from their customers must purchase certificates from generators guaranteeing backup supply, according to Commission de Regulation de l’Energie, the Paris- based regulator.

Germany, Europe’s biggest market, is paying plants deemed essential for power supply stability, including EON SE’s Irsching gas-fired plant in Bavaria, on an individual basis. Details have not yet been agreed to for a longer-term measure, according to a text adopted at a meeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet in Meseberg that ended Jan. 23.

Gas-fired plants such as Irsching can’t operate for enough hours to cover their costs, Georg Oppermann, an EON spokesman in Dusseldorf, Germany, said by e-mail.

“This is why we believe that plants which are needed for the security of the power system should be rewarded adequately,” he said.

Increase Trading

Nations should instead ensure security of supply by building more cross-border connections and increase trading with neighbors, according to the commission.

One of the pillars of the European Union is a single market where people, goods, services and capital move freely between its 28 nations. The region’s plan for a joint energy market by the end of 2014 will save as much as 70 billion euros ($94 billion) a year by 2030, according to the commission. Coupling, a step on the way to achieving a single market, may save consumers as much as 4 billion euros a year.

Europe began linking day-ahead markets in November 2006 as France, Belgium and the Netherlands integrated allocation of transmission capacity on cables and power trading. Germany and Luxembourg joined in November 2010.

The link-up of next-day electricity trading from the U.K. to Finland is intended to make power flow more easily across borders to where it is most needed.

First Auction

Prices in the first next-day power auction held today by network operators and energy exchanges across countries that account for 75 percent of Europe’s electricity supply ranged from 35.98 euros a megawatt-hour in Germany to the equivalent of 53.88 euros in the U.K.

“A strong, interconnected electricity transmission grid is critical” to creating a Europe-wide energy market and ensuring security of supply, Ethel Horan, spokeswoman for Brussels-based grid group Entso-e, said by e-mail.

“If we allow national ways of fixing markets with capacity mechanisms, it undermines the internal market,” said Klaus- Dieter Borchardt, a director for internal market in the energy department of the regulator in Brussels.

Capacity mechanisms could have “unfavorable effects” on competition, French regulator CRE said in a report last year. If a plant in one country receives payments, it may be able to sell power at cheaper rates than generators in neighboring countries, CEZ’s Viduna said.

Spanish Plant

A typical idle 500-megawatt gas plant in Spain, where generators have been able to earn capacity payments since 2007, receives about 7.3 million euros a year, according to Endesa SA, the Madrid-based utility. The number isn’t based on an actual plant.

Tennet Holding BV, one of four German high-voltage grid managers, will pay a “middle double-digit million-euro sum” a year to the Irsching 4 and 5 power plants to prevent them closing, EON said in May.

Capacity mechanisms are designed to pay the most flexible plants to act as backup when renewable output drops. A gas-fed plant with the latest technology can produce power within minutes, while coal-fed stations can take as much as six hours to reach full capacity.

Germany’s five-fold increase in renewable energy in the decade through 2012 intensified the need for gas-fired plants. Wind and solar accounted for as much as 49 percent of Germany’s power on Dec. 23, falling to 4 percent two days later, data from the European Energy Exchange compiled by Bloomberg show.

Further Declines

Profit at gas plants plunged as German power prices slumped. The benchmark year-ahead contract in Europe’s largest economy fell 29 percent since 2010 and traded at 36.55 euros a megawatt-hour today, broker data show. Prices may slide as much as 10 euros with a capacity mechanism because of the reduced risk of supply disruption, according to Tom Tindall, a director at IHS in London.

Gas-fed plants have been losing money since 2012 and will remain unprofitable through 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Power plants in Germany lose 20.73 euros for every megawatt-hour of power they generate, a gauge known as the clean-spark spread, a calculation based on year-ahead power price, fuel and emissions costs, according to data on Bloomberg.

Capacity mechanisms may cost consumers as much as 20 percent of the value of wholesale power markets, according to the commission. That’s 13.2 billion euros a year across Germany, France and the U.K., the bloc’s three largest markets, based on average prices and 2012 consumption.

Household Bills

That would add to the 28 percent price increase in the six years through 2013, according to Eurostat data. German residential bills are more than twice the amount that utilities pay to deliver the power, according to Berlin-based lobby group BDEW, even as demand last year fell to the lowest in a decade.

Economic output in the 18-nation euro region probably rose 0.4 percent in the three months through December after sliding for seven quarters, according to the median of 30 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Spain’s 14 million households paid more than 858 million euros last year in capacity payments, said Cesar Martinez Villar, a regulatory affairs expert at Endesa in Madrid.

There is a risk new investments will be discouraged by capacity payments, according to Ben Caldecott, the program director at Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

“Capacity mechanisms are a band aid for a deeper, more structural market reform that’s required,” he said. “Poorly designed mechanisms paying out more than is needed will cost consumers more.”

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Renewable energies are 'Bright spot' in the bleak outlook of the CO2-

The IEA presentation showed a largely pessimistic view of the world progress in clean energy. "The drive clean of the world energy system has paused", said Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. "Despite much talk of world leaders, and despite a boom in renewable energy over the last ten years is the average price per unit of energy, which is now basically so dirty like 20 years ago."

The report, tracking clean energy progress, measures each technology and sector against 2020 targets and results in a metric, the energy sector carbon intensity index (ESCII), which shows that pro is emitted as much CO2 given unit of energy. The ESCII measured 2.39 tons of CO2 per ton of oil equivalent (t CO2/t MTOE) in 1990; This number was almost up to the year 2010 unchanged at 2.37 t CO2/toe keep stable.

"As world creep higher temperatures due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide – two-thirds of which come from the energy sector - the general lack of progress should serve as a wake-up call," said van der Hoeven. "We cannot afford not another 20 years listlessness. We need a rapid expansion of energy technologies with low CO2 emissions, avoid a potentially disastrous warming of the planet, but we must accelerate also move away from dirty fossil fuels."

Renewable energies are a "ray of hope"

Although progress remains alarmingly for most of the technologies are reduced, which could move the world to the international climate targets, the IEA report presents some positive recent signs. Technologies for renewable energy and increased efforts of in developing countries are "among the few bright spots", said the Agency and van der Hoeven called renewable energy "a light in the dark" presentation.

From 2011 to 2012, the report says, grew up solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind technologies to 42% and 19%, and despite continuing economic and political turmoil in both areas. Emerging markets increase their clean energy efforts-for example Brazil, China and India among the countries, supporting the policies for the sector of renewable energies in the year 2012 advanced.

The IEA report provides recommendations for each technology. The Agency of coal prices and the phase-out of fossil fuels subsidies recommends arguing that the actual cost of energy of consumer prices must reflect that. Technologies such as electric vehicles, wind and solar will need support for several years, the report says, but it warns that policy should be more flexible and more transparent. While it forecast that growing economic competitiveness support robust renewable sector growth, the IEA stressed that effective political support design is essential, including facilitating network integration through market reforms.

The Agency recommends broader introduction of concentration solar power (CSP) and offshore wind energy as well as improved Rd &:-d for promising new technologies such as ocean power. But renewable energy technologies are largely as planned by 2020 to achieve objectives, improves performance, deployment is scaled and expand markets worldwide the IEA found.

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Renewable energies need more support: an interview with Arthourus Zervos

He argues that it’s vital to have dialogue between the various energy sectors saying: ‘It’s important to have this exchange and mixing up.’ Nonetheless, looking at future options in Europe, he says renewables are going to be there. ‘It will be there because they have the resources, and its better for the future to see that the penetration of renewables happens sooner rather than later for our children.’

Q: What is the most significant issue in current development?

AZ: The major story is that we’ve seen a niche market become a mainstream source that provides one of the investment options for a manager in his portfolio. This wasn’t the case 10 years ago, so I think this is the big change.

Q: Is it a combination of policy and economics?

AZ: The major factor that influences development is policy and in general I would say the support frameworks that have been in place in different countries. In Europe, the EU Directives have played a major role in development.

Q: Does renewable energy still require support?

AZ: Absolutely, in the sense we need a target, especially for 2020. It keeps security of continuation because we have a European framework and then the national frameworks that are connected to that which are going until 2020. The question is, what is happening in 2021? I think it is extremely important that there is a continuation of the policy, it doesn’t mean that it has to be the same as it is for 2020, but it’s important to have a target. How you reach the target is a different story which also depends a lot on each country. The basic element is the binding target. There is time to discuss the details but this is the first signal that one has to give to investors.

Feed-in tariffs have been the most successful policy tool I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be. There are different ways to support different technologies. One has to differentiate technologies, prices and see the different systems that can be applied.

Q: What about the role of carbon?

AZ: I think this doesn’t help at this stage. The price of carbon today doesn’t make a big difference for an investment. In that sense one has to fix the EU ETS [emissions trading scheme] which is a difficult story. In the last couple of years the Commission has been trying to fix it but there are a lot of reactions to that from different countries. For 2030 we have to have it how it was for 2020, with different targets for the reduction of carbon emissions and renewables.

Q: What level of market penetration do you anticipate?

AZ: In the last few years we’ve seen in the European power sector more than 70% of the work has been renewables, it was more than 70% of installations, so it is happening in a large scale in the power sector. It’s not the same story in the heating sector, one has to evaluate each of the sectors but for the power sector it is clear that we can arrive at very high numbers even for 2030.

Q: What could make renewables more attractive?

AZ: One has to see that there is the right framework in the country where the project will take place. What makes development more difficult is the question of financing, which we didn’t have three or four years ago. Financing has become more difficult and expensive in many countries so this is an important issue that one has to take into account. But we are coming back to the first question, it is a stable framework which makes the investment and the banks more willing to lend the money.

Q: How can long-term investors be encouraged?

AZ: I think it depends on who’s the investor. In the economic sense the big advantage of renewables with respect to other investments in the power sector is that you know exactly what your economics are for the next 20 years because you don’t have the fuel price in the equation. For an investment in wind or solar, 80% of the investment is upfront. It’s the opposite for gas, the initial investment is 20% of the total because 80% is going to be the fuel that you are going to burn in the next 20 or 30 years. What is the price of gas in 10 years? Nobody can answer that, so you take a risk. This is an important factor, especially if you build a portfolio. Of course it depends on the particular economics, but as wind and solar have come closer to investors in other energy sources a big advantage is in hedging.

Q: How can we address concerns that projects in developed markets have been missing out on investment to other regions?

AZ: It’s a positive development in the sense that the whole story started mainly in Europe and in a different way in the US, but I think this is spreading to the developing world. It’s important for the industry and the environment because, for example, we’re seeing the Chinese investing heavily in renewables. This is good for the sector and the environment. The leadership has been in the European countries and it will remain where you have innovation and investments because you continue to bring costs down. Of course competition is going to be much harder if you have Chinese or Brazilian companies entering the field but I think that the big advantage has been the technology advance of the EU companies.

Q: What about the role of renewables in job creation?

One of the basic elements of this industry is its job creation because it’s more labour intensive, especially if we look at Europe and where unemployment is today. I think we need sectors which create employment, and renewables can really play a part and help in the development of the growth in the continent. It’s one of the big pluses in terms of the market economics of the sector, job creation, from a social or economic point of view. I don’t think there is a contradiction, the question is of setting up a policy framework so you are assuring that you are also going to have an employment is important.

Q: What about the issue of integration?

As the penetration of renewable increases this is going to be more and more important. You need a flexible system as you have more variable sources like wind and solar. When you reach large amounts of penetration there are two issues which are interconnection and storage. Interconnecting the European system is important for the future because it helps viability. If the wind is blowing somewhere in the continent it doesn’t mean that it is always blowing at the same place so having the interconnections you can use more flexible and whole systems but also the question of pump storage comes into the picture. Of course you have to have the right [geographical] conditions but these two elements are essential for the large scale penetration of renewables.

Q: Will this happen in a reasonable time frame?

I think it is happening, both are not happening very fast, however. The EU has been putting an emphasis on the interconnection and so this is well understood and supported by the Commission. The pump storage depends on the particulars of different countries. Also the large penetration of renewables doesn’t happen from one day to the next, I think we see where it’s happening both of these elements are getting through to national policy as main elements. I’m quite confident.

Q: What future for smart grid, electric vehicles, and storage?

Again some technologies are not going to be there on a large scale tomorrow, but it is a process. Perhaps we are going to see more of that because it’s helpful for the whole management of the system and EVs can play a storage role and also balancing and managing the grid in a better way. I believe it’s going to come but, of course, it is related to the particular development of these particular technologies. From a commercial point of view we’re not there. On the other hand, advances have been made in the last year. We’ll see it in the large scale in the next decade and not this one.

Q: What’s your view on the role or urban renewables?

AZ: Especially in Germany we see it happening, I think the role of PV there is important and the potential is big. PV has a big advantage, you can put it everywhere and in that sense it has an important role to play, but you also have thermal heat pumps which also we have seen in some countries on quite a large scale, like Sweden. Also biomass has been happening more for heating on the small scale, the urban scale. So you have certain technologies for the urban environment and the combination of those really can help.

Q: Do you see a role for global legislation?

AZ: This should have been the most important of all, to arrive at the global, but as we have seen from the environment part and climate change discussions, it is a very difficult story. My feeling is that probably you could focus on a global renewable target. It has been moved in that direction, it’s important and we should continue to make effort. If we don’t do something with China, India and Brazil for example, then the whole planet is going to have a problem. Europeans have managed to control their emissions but it doesn’t help, it needs to be more global. On the other hand we are not very optimistic from what we have seen in the last few years.

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