A view shows photovoltaic solar pannels at the power plant in La Colle des Mees, Alpes de Haute ... [+] Provence, southeastern France, on April 17, 2019. - The 112,000 solar panels cover an area of 200 hectares with a total capacity of 100MW. (Photo by GERARD JULIEN / AFP) (Photo credit should read GERARD JULIEN/AFP via Getty Images)
While there are some who argue that renewable energy can be intermittent and cannot be relied upon, the way forward is clear. Green energy is happening. Deal with it.
But the move to low-carbon energy does create a number of challenges, particularly in regard to how grid operators manage the supply and demand of electricity. None of those are insurmountable, but to borrow a phrase from various motivational speakers, they do require a new way of thinking.
Optimization tools will play a big part in this journey. They will enable the people who operate energy grids to manage the increasingly complex nature of energy grids and ensure the lights stay on, no matter the circumstances. These are often based around artificial intelligence and machine learning, and can be frighteningly complicated themselves, but Energy Exemplar’s CEO David Wilson describes the company’s energy simulation model Plexos as a “crystal ball for energy markets”.
“We enable people to look into the future and understand what the best pathway for them is,” he said.
“It’s really a physics to economics simulator,” added Wilson. “We model all the physical attributes of the network, turn those into economics and try and solve the problem economically or, you know, optimize the system.”
In the past, Wilson said the rise of renewables, changes in government policy and the emergence of new technologies are driving change in energy markets across the world.
In some countries, the markets themselves are becoming more complicated and moving from prices changing every 30 minutes to every five.
He added renewable forms of energy, like offshore wind are now the cheapest form of electricity, even when backed up by storage.
“In the past, we spent a lot of time saying to people that it was comparatively simple to understand your energy system, because there were few very big assets and you could predict when the hottest day of the year was.
“Now you have to understand what’s going to happen if the sun's shining in the west, but not in the east, and many other complexities you did not have in the in the past. But the exciting thing for me is this is all manageable, and it's understandable. It just requires a lot more sophistication in how you think about it.”
For example, he said there are more than 400 variables, which can affect how a typical gas power plant can perform – including maintenance, fuel costs and the weather. Wilson said systems like Plexos are able to take all these variables and build and economic profile of how best to run that plant.
He added the move to decarbonize energy systems will be the “single biggest capital deployment in our lifetime” and it’s important that is done as efficiently as possible.
“It really matters to that it’s done in a way that is sensible and ensures reliability of the grid,” he added. “Doing it the right way means doing it the optimal way.”
His comments come as National Grid ESO in the U.K. and Energy Exemplar have announced a three-year agreement to use Plexos to support its transition to help future-proof the grid, while also retiring older parts of the energy network.
The platform will be used to inform future versions of the Future Energy Scenarios report, which set out potential pathways to net-zero by or before 2050.
It will also help shape the Network Operations Assessment report, a document published by the National Grid ESO each year with recommendations for where the transmission system needs investment and strengthening – particularly important when it considers a more diverse energy mix and reaching more remote areas of the country.