What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

[Noske]

I guess it is a way to combine some of the benefits of being a private company and yet retain some public control. The conumdrum is indeed that one does not want to have sluggish bureaucratic state enterprises that ignore the market, and yet avoid giving over what is indeed a natural monopoly to a private company that only serves its private shareholders. It works quite well, as long as the management does not forget that they are there to serve the country, and as long as poiliticians do not interfere unnecessarily. IN this particular case management wanted more investment in capacity while their political masters stuck to a more short term interest.
We have the same arrangement for the railway network, and a few other companies of national interest, such as, indeed, our central bank.

Major infrastructure decisions by private companies may rely on careful and calculated analysis for twenty years or a hundred years. Whatever.

I have boldened some words in your quote for a reason. I do not have any particular faith in the ability of politicians to make decisions that they will be responsible for beyond their term in office.

 

[Willem]

The challenge is positive and negative externalities. In cases such as these those externalities are important.
Anyway, the Dutch grid is very reliable. We even have a second backup high voltage grid to make the system even more robust. This will now be activated if and when the capacity of the primary grid will be insufficient.
We were a bit slow to decide the grid needed expansion because the urgency was slow to sink in, particularly with more conservative politicians, but by now almost everyone is fully aware.

 

[Willem]

Economically, the grid is the technical infrastucture of a competitive electricity market connecting the about a dozen competing private electricity companies I can buy my electricity from, and the about half a dozen private generating companies in the Netherlands (and some cross border trade). Between them they trade with long term contracts, futures and spot market trades.
The supply of green energy is indeed less stable, and this creates more price variability to stabilize the load. Connecting national grids more extensively enlarges the system, and hence stabilizes it because peaks and dips are often uncorrelated between distant regions. So this is what is being worked on. However, stabilizing supply is not the only way to stabilize prices. The other is to make short term demand more responsive to market prices, and this needs a smarter grid where, for example, your electric car will start charging when electricity is cheap, and not at peak prices. This is already happening in many industries, but for this to be available at a larger scale and also for consumers requires some changes to the infrastucture that will be implemented in the next few years, and more smart appliances.
In short, market mechanisms and competitive markets in particular are useful instruments for the new age. I am convinced that a grid that is independent from market parties is an important infrastucture for such competitive markets.

 

[Willem]

Tennet, the Dutch state owned operator of the National Grid has today published its plans for the growth of the grid, given the rapidly increasing demand for electricity: https://www.tennet.eu/nl/target-grid Plans include more connections to the increasing numbers of wind turbines in the North Sea that will produce a large proportion of our electricity, connections to the major industrial areas of the country, and connections to neighbouring countries, to stabilize the respective networks. Apart from the current AC grid, the new grid will have a lot of DC connections, in part underground. All this is being planned in close cooperation with all the other north western European countries. Click the button at the top right for English or German.

 

[tomtoo]

Ok not like to get political.

BUT it had been a great help for europe (maybe the world) to grow a green energyeconomy if a autocratic idiot had not started a war. Its not political its just FACT.And it could be a help if that other stable genious would not call a idiot a genious.

Over and out.

 

[raif71]

Human battery (The Matrix)

 

[monkeyboy]

Liquid fuels have a tremendous energy density..that's why they are used...to transition to electric, the equivalent energy of every gas tank in every car, truck, bus etc needs to come from the electric grid...that will require hundreds of new power plants and modifications to transmission equipment...renewables account for about 4% of the current energy usage...that's current electric without 100% electric vehicles...the politicians pushing this are idiots

 

[blueone]

Liquid fuels have a tremendous energy density..that's why they are used...to transition to electric, the equivalent energy of every gas tank in every car, truck, bus etc needs to come from the electric grid...that will require hundreds of new power plants and modifications to transmission equipment...renewables account for about 4% of the current energy usage...that's current electric without 100% electric vehicles...the politicians pushing this are idiots

EV do not need battery energy equivalent to fossil fuel tank capacities, because IC engines are less than 50% efficient, while electric motors are about 90% efficient. And most EV drivetrains have much lower loss (no driveshafts, simple transmissions, often direct drive) than ICE drivetrains.

 

[Willem]

Personally I think the strategy for the future cannot be very controversial. Ecology, cost and geopolitical independence all push in the same direction. Electricity will indeed be what brings all this together. The Netherlands are expecting that by 2030 about 75% of current electricity consumption will be from wind, mostly offshore. Of course, this will only be the beginning, because the phasing out of fossil fuel will demand a lot more electricity. Hence the current plans to expand the north west European grid.
Perhaps we should also realize that much of energy consumption is industrial, and in the Nethertlands industry is rapidly cutting back energy consumption, if only because of the cost. As I said, the cost argument underwrites the ecological and geopolitical one - market incentives do work.

 

[Willem]

And as for cars: in 2022 26% of all new cars in the Netherlands were completely electrical. There are 100k private charging points for them, and 37k public ones, and the number is going up all the time.

 

[monkeyboy]

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[Philbo King]

This was solved by the Amish more than 100 years ago: Stay home, and grow your own food. (Probably does not include Hifi systems.)

 

[Timcognito]

renewables account for about 4% of the current energy usage...that's current electric without 100% electric vehicles...the politicians pushing this are idiots

Not 100% renewable but now it is 24% in California and climbing fast in part thanks to those idiots.

 

[Willem]

The first 50% should be easier than the last. However, technology will also get better.

 

[Willem]

And as I wrote, the Netherlands are planning to generate from wind 75% of current level electricity consumption by 2030.

 

[robwpdx]

I am an engineer, sure some on ASR are too. I am an IEEE member, sure some on ASR are too. The IEEE-PES Power Engineering Society and utilities are deeply focused on solving this. It can be solved. The IEEE-PES has engineering publications.

 

[monkeyboy]

It can be solved...with current technology and resources?....How?....Long term nuclear is the answer (but with a different fuel cycle than the current PWRs and BWRs), and some sort of battery storage...instead of effectively burning piles cash now, better to spend on technology development and actually have a long term plan...

 

[LeftCoastTim]

What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

These are In My Humble Opinion, from United States perspective.

• There are different definitions of Green. I take it to mean "de-carbonized", since climate change is the most serious threat to humans.
• Internalizing the cost of carbon in our economy. For example, Meat and carbon fuels needs be a lot more expensive.
• A better solution to de-carbonizing transportation is to build mass transit, not more individual vehicles. Electric vehicles will help, but electric mass transit will help a lot more.
• More urban density uses less energy overall. There is no reason why district heating (and now cooling) cannot be used everywhere.
• Electrification of all home appliances.
• More work from home / remote work.

But none of these can happen if USA keeps increasing our rich/poor divide. A prosperous middle class who can afford to make climate conscious decisions instead of the cheapest decisions will go a long way. But that's a different topic entirely from this one.

 

[Dismayed]

The problem that most of these models ignore is "timing" i.e. except for Hydro all the "green sources" of energy do not match demand patterns of energy usage and practical storage solutions do no current exist either in reality or even in theory. This means that practically speaking for every Mega Watt of "green energy" added to the grid you need an equal amount of "traditional energy" in order to back it up. No model I know of takes this into account and in fact many utilities are removing "traditional energy" sources from the grid as they add "green sources" and that is why the grid is becoming so unstable (see Texas and California of practical examples of this). The cost of keeping these huge backup reserves eliminates that cost advantage of the "green energy" sources.

Subsidies always have unintended consequences so rather that "help" the transition to "green sources" they actually make the transition much more difficult and the costs are much higher than if free market forces were allowed to work.

Nonsense. There are excellent grid storage systems on the verge of deployment. Ambri, an MIT spinoff, has started placing test liquid metal batteries into service. They project a greater than 25 year life and over 80% efficiency. Vanadium flow batteries exist, too.

The free market doesn't include rxternalities, so the best solution is to tax fossil fuels, but people would revolt. They’d rather trash the planet. Do subsidies make the most sense.

 

[RayDunzl]

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