“European Supergrid and Renewable Energy Sources”
12 July 2011Speech at Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum
Lord Whitty, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
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It’s my pleasure to be representing the Green Economics Institute here today.
In early October 2009, there was a stormy weekend in Germany. Pushed by blustering winds, wind turbines produced massive amounts of energy and fed the energy grid, creating an oversupply that couldn’t be compensated within the grid, due to a lack of storage capacity and lines to consumption centres. The surprising, if not preposterous, consequence is: temporary “negative energy prices” at the Leipzig energy exchange, so the energy suppliers had to pay to discharge energy. This example actually illustrates some of the many challenges confronting our energy infrastructure today. That’s why we need a super smart grid in Europe. Our grids today are simply not ‘smart’ enough, if not ‘stupid’.
We, the Green Economics Institute, with no doubts highly support the development of Europe’s super smart grid, primarily because of the unprecedented opportunities it will offer for the extensive use of renewable energy sources. We want to see a gradual fade-out of nuclear, coal and oil in the near future.
Perhaps the biggest curse of renewable energy has been its intermittent nature that fails to provide a predictable, steady flow of “base load” power to the grid. After all, the sun is not always shining; the wind is not always blowing; waves are not always crashing – but how often are all sources weak at the same time? So, we support the governments embarking on a renewable energy master grid “on a continental scale” that will pair different technologies in different environments to help mitigate the natural ebb and flow of any one source.
This means utility companies will no longer need to run back-up power, most often natural gas or coal, simultaneously in the event that the renewables cannot meet supply. As a result, real reductions in carbon emissions can be realised. We are delighted to see steps are being taken to make renewable energy a better investment and more reliable.
With a Super Smart Grid which joins up the grids of EU’s member states and North Africa by 2050, it can ultimately improve the efficiency of using our renewable energy sources and hence, to combat climate change, facilitating a transition to a low-carbon Europe.
If the EU is to achieve its emission reduction and renewables targets on time and keep the global temperature rise to within 2°C, our grids have to be at least carbon-neutral, or even of negative emissions. Potential is spread across Europe with wind in the North and sun in the South, biomass in Central and Eastern Europe, etc. Sorry to say, we find it difficult to achieve these targets with the current energy policy paradigm, transport and storage capacities in Europe unless we link up and extend our grids to the deserts in North Africa for their enormous potential solar and wind power.
In the future, a super smart grid can balance volatility in the UK’s large offshore wind portfolio with pumped storage capacity from Norway’s extensive hydro-power portfolio. Higher security of supply means energy prices can become more stable, and an integrative electricity market a reality in Europe. The super grid will create job opportunities as it can create another global opportunity for European enterprises to export sustainable European energy technologies. It, if successful, will also be a role model for the rest of the world, particularly the world’s largest polluters, China and other emerging developing countries like Inida.
We understand that a super smart grid creates important challenges as well. And I look forward to a fruitful exchange of views with or learn from all of you in the panel discussion.
Thank you very much.
