Decarbonisation Technology - February 2022 Issue

electricity to power it all – or, in particular, enough renewable electricity. A quarter of our US power and utilities industry survey respondents rated this as their top concern of the five challenges listed in Figure 1 . In addition, 65% of respondents said that with corporations, governments, and others increasingly pledging to decarbonise, the US may not have enough renewable energy to meet customers’ demand for clean electricity by 2035. On the other hand, 45% of respondents disagreed, saying that since most new US generation capacity added in recent years has been renewable, and that trend is accelerating, there will likely be enough renewable electricity to meet goals by 2035. We explored government and think tank models for US electricity generation required under various carbon reduction scenarios (see Figure 3 ), and it appears that overall power supplies will likely be sufficient, as long as the industry continues long-term, holistic system planning, grid modernisation, demand side management, and integration of DER. As for renewable supplies, the data show that achieving 100% clean electricity between 2035 and 2050 may require doubling or tripling the 35 GW of wind and solar capacity that was added in 2020, every year. This is an ambitious goal and could be assisted by policy support, such as continued renewable tax credits

A misperception among the public and even some in the electric power industry used to be that more than 10% penetration of variable wind and solar power on electric grids could destabilise them. But in reality, power systems in some countries and some US states are already operating with more than 50% penetration of wind and solar generation annually, without impacting reliability. In 2020, Denmark had the highest share of variable renewables in its electricity generation mix, at 61%. The US average was 11% in 2020, but it was 58% in the state of Iowa, and 43% in Kansas. Figure 2 maps the top 10 countries for variable renewable energy (VRE) penetration in 2020. Solutions to help integrate these resources range from redesigning markets and improving weather forecasting, to deploying energy storage and modernising the grid (Deloitte, 2021). Distributed energy resources (DER) are expected to play a big role in integrating VRE. Seventy per cent of respondents said DER will form a big component of the clean electricity grid that will help balance intermittent resources. Meeting future renewable electricity demand As the world further electrifies energy use in the transportation, building, and industrial sectors, some are concerned that there may not be enough

Denmark 61%

United Kingdom 29% Ireland 35%

Lithuania 38%

Germany 33%

Portugal 26%

Greece 27%

Spain 29%

Luxembourg 39%

Uruguay 44%

Figure 2 Top 10 countries’ share of annual electricity generation from VRE, 2020 Source: (Ember, 2021)