The Grids of the Future

1
New power control methods:

Grid oper­a­tion will need to adapt to fluc­tu­at­ing elec­tri­cal ener­gy pro­vi­sion in order to cov­er demand. Where coal bunkers were once the stor­age solu­tion of choice, there is now demand for short-term and long-term ener­gy stor­age meth­ods as a way of reg­u­lat­ing the avail­able pow­er bal­ance. The stor­age tech­nolo­gies with the most focus include pow­er-to-gas plants, pumped-stor­age pow­er plants, and bat­ter­ies.

2
Structural changes in grids:

Most renew­able sources of ener­gy are installed in loca­tions where the sup­ply of pri­ma­ry ener­gy (wind, sun, bio­gas, or bio­mass) is at its most plen­ti­ful — not nec­es­sar­i­ly where demand is high­est. Sup­plies of ener­gy are also becom­ing increas­ing­ly dis­persed and renew­able plants tend to be small­er than con­ven­tion­al ones.

Many pro­duc­ers are shift­ing away from trans­mis­sion grids in favor of dis­tri­b­u­tion grids. Due to the fluc­tu­at­ing sup­ply of pri­ma­ry ener­gy, the installed capac­i­ty (and there­fore the con­nect­ed load required) in rela­tion to annu­al ener­gy yield is much high­er than it is in con­ven­tion­al pow­er plants. This means that both dis­tri­b­u­tion grids and trans­mis­sion grids will need to be expand­ed in many cas­es.

3
Growth of power grids:

As the world moves toward alter­na­tive resources, demand for elec­tri­cal ener­gy is also expect­ed to rise by 50% world­wide and pow­er grids will be required to trans­port this addi­tion­al ener­gy. The capac­i­ty need­ed for trans­porta­tion will depend on sup­ply and demand over the course of the day. Renew­able meth­ods of gen­er­at­ing ener­gy cre­ate larg­er fluc­tu­a­tions on the sup­ply side because, due to nat­ur­al con­di­tions, the oper­at­ing times of wind pow­er plants are only around 40 per­cent of con­ven­tion­al plants—and just under 15 per­cent in the case of solar plants.

As a result, much high­er capac­i­ty lev­els need to be installed in order to deliv­er the same amount of ener­gy. Inte­grat­ing road trans­porta­tion into the grid also brings new fluc­tu­a­tions on the demand side, which may result in a need to expand the grids, depend­ing on their reserve capac­i­ties.

4
Increased grid flexibility:

Grids oper­ate with reserves that they can use in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances and as a back­up in the event of prob­lems. As a result of struc­tur­al changes and increased elec­tric­i­ty lev­els, the capac­i­ty of grids will be used more inten­sive­ly at all volt­age lev­els and, in response, grids will need to be strength­ened and pro­vid­ed with relief mea­sures using a more flex­i­ble approach to sup­ply and demand. Smart grids, smart meters, new elec­tric­i­ty trad­ing con­cepts, and more flex­i­ble price mod­els will be need­ed to achieve this.

5
Expansion in grid technology:

Apart from the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of ener­gy, a fur­ther tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment is tak­ing place in elec­tric­i­ty grids. Wind plants, solar plants, elec­tric stor­age devices, elec­trol­y­sis plants, charg­ing infra­struc­tures for elec­tric vehi­cles, and numer­ous con­sumers all have one thing in com­mon — they both sup­ply and are oper­at­ed with direct cur­rent. As a result of the move toward renew­able forms of ener­gy, the installed capac­i­ty of direct-cur­rent sys­tems in many grids already exceeds that of con­ven­tion­al alter­nat­ing-cur­rent sys­tems (gen­er­a­tors, dri­ves, and alter­nat­ing-cur­rent con­sumers).

The use of con­vert­ers that work with pow­er elec­tron­ics is set to rise in the future. New equip­ment with pow­er elec­tron­ics and new con­ven­tion­al equip­ment can be used to face the chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions pre­sent­ed by oper­at­ing the grids of the future. Grids are also like­ly to become more and more auto­mat­ed — but their require­ments for reli­able oper­a­tion with high-qual­i­ty cur­rent and volt­age will remain the same.