With better network planning, more predictability for industry and working in partnership, distribution system operators and grid technology providers can build the electricity network for tomorrow. This was the key message T&D Europe’s Secretary General, Diederik Peereboom, delivered during EDSO’s 5th Stakeholder and Innovation Council on the 30th of November in Frankfurt, Germany.
Building on a well-established cooperation, T&D Europe, as the voice of the grid technology providers in Europe, representing large multinational cooperations and many small, medium-sized and micro companies, stands with EDSO in helping DSO’s to meet the challenges of future-proofing Europe’s electricity network.
Distribution system operators are in the spotlight, they are at the heart of enabling the energy transition, which requires the rapid integration of increasing shares of renewable energy and the electrification of transport, heating and industry. Today 70% of renewables are connected to the distribution system. In the next 3 years the EU aims to more than double the amount of solar energy and by 2030 no less than 750 GW of wind and solar needs to be connected to the grid. EDSO and Eurelectric estimated that this requires EUR 425 bn of investments in the distribution network.
Building the grid of tomorrow needs policy, technology and investment. As manufacturers T&D Europe members are confident that the technology to future-proof the grid is already available, but much of it is in boxes. We need to deploy the available technologies at scale.
There are 3 Ps that will help to make the next step: Planning, Predictability and Partnership. It starts with Planning: better and more detailed distribution network plans. This will provide Predictability of the hardware and software needs of DSOs, which allows the industry to plan its production. All this requires working in Partnership with EDSO and T&D Europe to discuss the needs, challenges and solutions in a structured dialogue. Such a dialogue is starting to take place in some countries in Europe, such as France and the UK, where the Supply Chain Council has started recently.
In the concluding remarks of the event, Bram Sieben (Alliander) and Nicholas Tarrant (ESB Network) observed that we need to address the challenge together as an ecosystem. The challenge is not linear, but exponential. This requires an acceleration of the development of the grid.
T&D Europe and EDSO will continue their discussions on we can progress on planning, predictability and partnership in the coming weeks.
