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The headlines are full of reports of an overloaded power grid. We are even warned about “flashing lights” and power outages.
Especially in the south of the country and the Eindhoven region, the demand for electricity is rising enormously, but companies cannot get new connections for the time being and they sometimes have to wait for years. New bottlenecks also arose on the electricity grid in Flevoland, Friesland, North Holland, and Gelderland at the end of last year. Grid operator Liander indicates that the maximum capacity there for large-scale users, such as companies, has been reached. And TenneT also indicates that new areas have emerged where the electricity grid is virtually full. There they make use of a waiting list for companies and organisations that want a new connection or want to expand an existing connection.
Due to the strongly increasing demand for electricity, the explosive growth of electric cars, for example, and the rapid rise of solar and wind energy, our power grid is becoming overloaded. This “grid congestion” in turn ensures that companies cannot become more sustainable because they do not get a connection for their solar panels or wind farms.
The current power grid cannot cope with the demand
In the Netherlands we have enough power stations, wind turbines and solar parks to meet the rising demand for electricity. Generating power, however, is not the problem.
The problem lies in the transport of electricity over the power grid. The power grid in the Netherlands is limited. Thin cables are utilised that are not suitable for the current usage. In addition to the fact that much more electricity is consumed than before, we are also generating more and more electricity through sustainable energy sources. You would say this is a good thing, right? But all this power from solar panels and wind turbines must be returned to the grid via the same cables. And the current power grid is not designed for this. The power grid is built for one-way traffic: from the power plant to the user. Because more and more sustainable energy is now also being delivered back, the power grid suddenly must function as a two-way street. Interruptions are increasingly taking place on the power grid, simply because there is more demand for power than the grid can transport.
In addition, more and more energy is being generated in the “wrong” places; where it is not needed at that time. Wind farms in the north of the country, for example, can generate a large amount of energy on a windy day. But this energy cannot simply be transported to the south; transporting too much energy causes clogging problems.
Grid operators are doing their utmost to expand and strengthen the power grid, but this requires high investments and takes a lot of time. Applying for and obtaining permits takes about 7 to 8 years… and then they haven’t even begun construction!
Not only expand the power grid but make use of it in a smarter way
More cables in the ground alone will not solve the problem of network congestion. The real problem is not in the capacity of the grid, but in its management.
Many connections only use about 30% of their full capacity most of the time. The remaining 70% is reserve capacity and is only used in case of disruptions. In the Netherlands we like certainty, and this is reflected in the electricity network. Everything is double-wired and executed, and this extra wiring is kept free to prevent power failure in the event of a malfunction. This means that these extra cables are hardly ever used.
The power grid is often compared to a highway; both consist of several lanes and an emergency lane. You can see the reserve capacity of the power grid as the emergency lane, which is only used in case of crisis; to deal with disturbances.
Just like a motorway, traffic jams arise if it is used too much. Sometimes there is so much traffic that even the entrance to the highway must be closed. This is done, for example, by no longer allocating connections to companies for solar panels and wind farms in grid congestion areas. In addition, sustainable power plants that are connected can be temporarily switched off when they produce too much, to spare the grid. As a result, there is a waste of all green energy that cannot be used.
From A-to Better on the electricity highway
There are several options to solve this “traffic jam problem” on the electricity highway. Widening the motorway by laying extra cables and strengthening the network is one possibility. But as mentioned earlier, this takes a lot of time and money.
A better option is to use existing infrastructure and use it smarter. For example, by no longer using the ‘emergency lane’ only for emergencies, but by using it as a ‘rush hour lane’. In this way, at peak times – when a lot of energy must be transported from A-to-B and vice versa – you can open the rush-hour lane and use the full capacity of the network.
Fortunately, this is something that is slowly happening. The reserve capacity has recently been allowed to be used as a “peak-hour lane”. So not only in emergencies, but also during peak times. For example, grid operator TenneT is increasingly deploying reserve capacity in busy areas for the transmission of sustainable energy from the sun and wind.
In addition, TenneT is now conducting research into ‘rush hour avoidance’. This means that the network operator makes agreements with users about generation and consumption at times when the demand for electricity is lower. Think of a factory that will produce more on weekends and less on weekdays. This is offset by a compensation from TenneT.
Energy management: smart control of the grid is essential
The fact is that we are not going to solve network congestion if everyone continues to use the highway at the same times. Then there will never be enough lanes.
There are sufficient options to reduce the load on the power grid. Think of matching supply and demand, storage in batteries or the use of electric cars as a battery. The best option is to use the energy where it is generated. When energy does not have to be transported, no problems arise on the grid.
Grid operators should know exactly what is happening on their grids. They must be able to plan, instead of running behind the facts. Grid operators must be given the opportunity to manage consumption and generation more themselves. As a result, they can better coordinate generation and consumption at a local level and absorb peaks more easily.
Smart control of the power grid is required to achieve this. Through smart energy management and automatic analyses of both energy consumption and generation, energy consumption can be increasingly optimised, and we can hopefully avoid flashing lights and power outages.
