Challenges of greening the power grid
ELECTRICITY production from renewable sources such as solar and wind offers numerous benefits to society but isn’t without its challenges.
Our government plans to produce 20 percent of electricity in the country by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.
This is a good step as renewables can power our development dreams in a secure and sustainable manner.
Turning dreams into reality, however, requires that these ambitions are supported with a set of dynamic policy, institutional and financial frameworks.
Without such support, there will be risks that our dreams may remain dreams only.
Renewable energy technologies, especially those based on solar and wind, are making rapid inroads into the power grids around the world.
According to REN21’s Renewables 2021 Global Status Report, 139 GW of photovoltaic (PV) and 93 GW of wind capacities were added in the global power grids during 2020 leading to a total PV capacity of 760 GW and wind capacity of 743 GW.
The Renewable 2021: Analysis and Forecasts 2026 report, released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in December 2021,also asserts that this thrust of renewable power generation must be maintained, and even stepped-up, in the future to realize the society’s goal of “Net Zero by 2050” to combat climate threats.
If adopted properly, renewable power generation can provide numerous benefits to the country.
It can alleviate our dependence on highly-polluting and imported fuels.It can help us shift to local, affordable and environmental-friendly energy supplies and improve our security.
It can reduce transmission and distribution (T&D) losses.It can defer T&D investment needs.It can lessen excessive reserve capacity needs.And it can spur local industrial development, businesses and employment.
Their unguided and unplanned infiltration in the grid, in contrast, can impose significant technical and financial penalties which can lead to losing many of their potential benefits.
These penalties could include costs in maintaining excessive reserve capacity in the system, unnecessary cycling of conventional plants increasing their wear and tear, sub-optimal investment in the renewables’ integration with the grid and curtailment of cheaper and renewable electric power production.
The road to high shares in the power grid is going to be bumpy as well as slippery.Our government will need to tread very carefully on it as it can test the limits of its driving skills.
We discuss below some critical challenges the country will face in achieving its renewable power generation ambitions and also offer some pointers for effectively dealing with them.
To keep things simple, we will assume that our government’s renewable generation targets are for the national grid only and exclude any standalone, behind-the-meter or off-grid applications.First, we must appreciate that renewables are inherently different.
Unlike conventional technologies which rely on exhaustible fuel stocks, renewables base on natural energy flows which, even though ubiquitous, are scattered and diffused; their availability is also uncertain and variable over time.
Adding renewables to the grid in any significant levels poses both planning and operational challenges.
Our present planning, decision-making and operating frameworks are remnants of a bygone era when the “the bigger, the better, and cheaper too” mindset ruled the electricity supply business.
It has served its purpose quite well for over a century but is not cut for dealing with small-scale, distributed and site and local weather specific renewables.
Therefore, we must accord renewables a fair and level playing field against their conventional competitors.
Deployment of renewables demands careful attention to local resource availability and its temporal distribution, operating environment and consumer demand to decide on the best renewable resource, technology, size and deployment scheme.
Planners need to be adequately trained, skilled, and properly equipped to deal with the issues, attributes and demands of such data-intensive and analytically-demanding renewable power generation schemes.
Planners face three key issues in developing long-term resource plans for their systems when considering high shares of renewables.
First, how much firm capacity the renewable plants will contribute to their systems to ensure reliability? Second, how much energy renewables will contribute to their systems?
Third, what support from the rest of the system they will need to cover the uncertain and variable nature of the renewables?
All these factors contribute to capital and operating costs and any miscalculation can lead to allocative and productive inefficiencies for which the economy and consumers have to pay dearly.
System operation and control setup, protocols and procedures will also require revamping as the share of renewables in the grid increases.
The current practices require radical changes.The operators will need greater visibility about the dynamic conditions in the grid, availability and expected output from renewable plants, as close as possible to the real-time as well as during actual operation.
A state-of-the-art supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system embedded in an equally-sophisticated energy management system (EMS) and supported with reliable renewable production forecasts will provide the foundation for a stable, secure and economic operation of the grid.
In sharp contrast to conventional plants, renewables require large tracts of land some of which may fall into protected, environmentally-fragile, or politically-sensitive regions.
Developers may be required to secure permits and authorizations from government agencies which often involve satisfying cumbersome procedures and considerable time.
Such sites, and in particular those rich in wind, may be located far away from existing T&D networks.
Also, road access to such sites may not be available or adequate.It’s always useful for the government to do some advanced homework about such issues and develop a mechanism to provide as much comfort to prospective developers as possible.
Financial markets also exist primarily to serve large-sized conventional power generation projects.
Developers of renewable power projects may find it difficult to secure financing for their smaller, dispersed and high-upfront cost projects due to the perceived higher risks and uncertain rewards associated with such projects.
It’s also not unusual for potential sponsors of such projects to demand relatively higher returns on investment backed up by long-term contracts.
As most of the investment for renewable power projects is expected to come from the private sector, our government will need to establish a renewable investor-friendly environment and related instruments.
The need for establishing a supportive R&D setup for up-scaling renewable power generation in the country cannot be overemphasized.
There are numerous issues involved with the higher shares of renewables in the power grid.Only a few are raised above.International experiences cannot be adopted blindly in Pakistan.
Renewable power generation can be pursued via multiple pathways, each with its own merits and demerits.
It’s critical to follow a route that holds the greatest prospects for our nation.This will be possible only if the efforts to upscale renewable power generation in the country are informed and guided by the results of rigorous research studies at every step along the way.
—The writer is a freelance consultant specializing in sustainable energy and power system planning and development.
