"Invest in Grids today or face gridlock tomorow"

Powerful words, used by Fatih Birol - the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) - during the recent presentation of a report that puts the global spotlight on #powergrids, again. As a testament to the importance of the topic, the report counts numerous contributing organizations among which European Commission The World Bank EU DSO Entity ENTSO-E Eurelectric WindEurope , national and international regulatory bodies, and a number of companies such as Enel Group Iberdrola Renewables Prysmian Hitachi Energy National Grid ESO Red Eléctrica .

The aim of the report, titled "Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions" is

1) to provide stocktake of grids as they stand, to understand their current status and pace of change in recent years.

2) to understand where we need to go to achieve the climate targets for 2050 and what would happen if grid development falls short.

3) to offer a set of recommendations for policy makers to identify actions they can take to ensure grids enable, rather than impede, energy transitions across different power industry and economic contexts.

Below I offer a shortlist of personal takeaways.

1) Magnitude of the problem

Grid length has almost doubled over the past 30 years, driven mostly by expansion of Distribution Grids.

A staggering 80 mln km of power grids need to be refurbished/ built from here to 2040 (in less than 2 decades)

Grids not fit for purpose simultaneously delay the development of renewables as well as increase the economic damages related with power outages that today cost above USD $100 bn/ year. They also delay electrification and electricity access to the more than 660 million people that still do not enjoy power in their lives.

2) Solution: Accelerate grid development

Whereas investment in #renewables more than doubled in the last 10 years, the amount of investment in grids remained flat at about USD $300  bn/year in the last decade.

Investments in Grids need to reach USD $600  bn/year with particular emphasis on #digitalization and #modernization of distribution grids

#Digitalgrids are indeed vital to safeguard electricity supply during clean energy transitions. As the shares of variable renewables such as #solar PV and #wind increase, power systems need to change the way they plan #contingency.

When 30-40% or even more of the peak production will be renewable, and connected to distribution grids, you need an infrastructure flexible enough to accommodate and manage the new distributed energy resources. Security of supply in a power mix with high share of distributed generation plants -  that can work at whatever frequency, and can operate at different levels of voltage -  becomes a different challenge altogether.

3) What if? Not acting on grids will be much more expensive than investing now

The Grid Delay Case detailed in the report is arguably one of the novelties from this call to action by the IEA. It shows the impacts of more limited investment on modernization and digitalization and operational improvements on grids vis a vis the Agency's own climate focused scenario (APS). In other words, it highlights what are we risking if the grids aren’t ready at 2050:

• We will have less 20% of clean electricity generation at 2050 from solar and wind, generating hundreds of billions of USD in economic losses from fossil fuel imports every year
• We will accumulate in the atmosphere almost 60 gigatons extra of CO2 emissions that could be avoided and that will worsen the economic impacts of climate change. (60 Gt is the equivalent to the last 4 years of emissions of the total power sector globally)

4) So what?

You might prefer discussing different pathways to shape the energy system transformation, you might believe in molecules rather than electrons, you might be skeptical of #batteries #EVs #heatpumps, or you might even challenge the idea that #climatechange is man-made and speeding up the planet's degradation. However, at the end of the day, you trust that light will always come when you switch it on, and that your phone or laptop will always find power at the other end of the plug.

This is why #powergrids matter. More than 7 billion of the humans that live on this plant rely on electricity. Grids are the largest infrastructure ever built by mankind. Be mindful of it!

The 6 recommendations of IEA to avoid delaying grid development include:

1. Improve Grid Planning;
2. Unlock Investment;
3. Remove barriers to Grid development;
4. Secure Supply Chains;
5. Leverage Digitalization;
6. Build a skilled workforce.