CURRENT-EUROPE

CurrENT Europe, the industry association for European innovative grid technology companies, and economic consulting firm Compass Lexecon are releasing a new innovative grid technologies report.

Grids are increasingly becoming a bottleneck. Up until now, the transition has been focused on the production side of clean energy generation, but we are now hitting the limits of our grid. The energy transition urgently needs more grid capacity. Electrical transmission and distribution network lengths across Europe need to grow by up to 50% and 60% respectively if we are to see a fully decarbonized power system by 2040.

Innovative Grid Technologies (IGTs) can improve grid capacity up to 40%, generating between 100-200GW of extra capacity by 2040. Even a conservative deployment of innovative grid technologies can accelerate transmission grids expansion by 5 to 8 years and distribution grids expansion by 4 to 7 years. Installing IGTs could contribute to the need for network buildout and achieve gross savings of approximately 35% representing up to 700 billion Euros by 2040.

CurrENT and Compass Lexecon’s report, supported by Breakthrough Energy, share 5 recommendations to improve IGT adoption and ‘future proof’ European grids:

1. Avoid ‘death by pilot’ – Issue guidance to national grid regulators on how to incentivize meaningful mass deployment of commercially available grid-enhancing technologies.
2. Measure and set specific targets for adding grid capacity - Europe needs to measure how fast grid capacity is growing annually, and if the pace willl meet Europe’s decarbonisation and energy independence objectives.
3. A greater proportion of innovation funding needs to go to electricity grids - Only 18% of the total funding of €3.1 billion spent under the EU ETS Innovation Fund has gone to renewables and storage and 8% to other technologies including efficiency.
4. Regulatory and technical sandboxes - These will ensure that safe, reliable technology can be proven as proposed by the Commission’s Net Zero Industry Act.
5. Guarantee scheme(s) for the perceived risk of performance of innovative technologies - Some utilities are concerned about potential underperformance of mature innovative technologies or even stranding of assets. Such guarantees could mitigate these concerns in implementing newer grid technologies by stakeholders.

Read the full report here.

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