Accelerating the energy transition

The challenges presented by the transition to electricity systems primarily powered by renewable energy and other low-emissions energy sources has led to the creation of a new global consortium of power system operators to provide co-ordinated support and knowledge transfer for organisations pursuing clean energy transitions.

The Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) consortium includes EirGrid, AEMO from Australia, Energinet from Denmark, Cal ISO from the US, and National Grid from the UK as members.

It aims to carry out cutting-edge research; provide support for world-class engineering and operational solutions; support workforce development; build and disseminate open-access data and tools; and accelerate localised technology adoption, standards development and testing programmes by power system operators around the world.

"These are the leading electricity system operators in the world when it comes to incorporating renewables," says Eirgrid chief executive Mark Foley. "They have come together to help create and share the intellectual property which will help to achieve the ambition of 100 per cent renewables on electricity systems.

“We came together with the shared belief that urgent climate action is required, and that moving to more sustainable, zero-carbon, electricity systems is a key enabler in this. We believe there is an opportunity to make a real difference and accelerate the transition on a global basis.”

The G-PST initiative has two central goals, according to Foley.

“The first is to align the best research minds and institutions globally around the real-world challenges faced in operating electricity systems with very high levels of renewable generation.

“The second is to disseminate the findings broadly and help other jurisdictions and system operators successfully manage increasing amounts of renewables as well as build some of the broader enabling capabilities that will ultimately accelerate the transition.”

Collaboration

It is collaborative efforts like this one that hold the key to successfully addressing climate change, he believes.

“You need to ask how you can bring people together to tackle climate change. Do you play the scare card with apocalyptic visions? That’s a philosophical debate. I believe we are entering a decade of collaboration which the world never seen before. Covid was the precursor to that. The biggest corporations around the world got together with governments to find a solution and vaccines were developed in record time. We are going to see similar unparalleled collaboration to drive carbon off the system over the next 10 years.”

The challenge is not a technological one, according to Foley. The main barriers actually lie with the policy community and with people’s attitudes and behaviours.

“The engineers have the solutions and will continue to develop the solutions to tackle climate change. The question is for the policy-makers. Is there a will for it? From a leadership perspective, governments must win hearts and minds and get people to engage and want decarbonisation and climate action to happen. The mindset where people say they don’t want wind or solar projects located near them has to change.”

He points to Ireland’s track record over the past number of years in this regard. “Ireland’s power system has already proven itself capable of meeting challenging targets when the government puts its weight behind them.”

In 2007, when the government came up with its climate ambition for 2020 and having 40 per cent renewables on the electricity system many commentators considered this to be unattainable and described it as the stuff of green fantasy.

“But Eirgrid went out and achieved it,” says Foley. “And later, when the 70 per cent target was set in 2019, nobody batted an eyelid. Now the latest plan is likely to push that up towards 80 per cent.

"What happened in Ireland is that we catalysed an ecosystem of public and private sector investments in onshore wind to meet the target. Ultimately Ireland is now as good as anywhere in the world when it comes to integrating renewables on to the grid."

Offshore wind

Other technologies will be required to meet that 70 to 80 per cent target, says Foley referring to the recent Government announcement on offshore wind.

“We are now going offshore. That is proven technology in places like the North Sea. We are transferring world class technology into the Irish Sea and solar is coming as well. This is going to offer really impressive price points at which to deliver energy to the grid. The biggest challenge is going to be to get the people of Ireland on board. Technology is not the challenge. Will we have the technology to deliver a fully decarbonised system over time? The answer is a 100 per cent yes.”

G-PST’s goal is to give countries around the world access to those technologies as quickly as possible.

“We are working with research institutions to solve the problem on a global basis. We have to get away from local mindsets. We all have the same problems. G-PST is about developing a co-ordinated approach to solving the problem and rapidly deploying the solutions.

“Ireland took 20 years to get to 40 per cent. We want to help developing nations to do that in half the time or less. We will make all of the intellectual property created by our research available to developing nations to hopefully make their path a lot quicker and less tortuous than ours.”