Ole Bigum, head of operations at K2 management, a Danish consultancy providing engineering services for developers of wind and solar power, is getting impatient. He believes that major power system interconnections are getting far too much attention and that ministers and businesses need to focus much more on electrification to speed up the transition to a decarbonised energy economy. Speaking to FORESIGHT ahead of the Ninth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM9) and Nordic Clean Energy Week, Bigum calls on ministers to stop talking about how to transfer power across borders and to start discussing how advancements in electrification would enable clean energy to be consumed locally.
Q: What_ would be on the CEM9 agenda if you had written it? A:
Electrification and the storage technologies that enable electrification would definitely be at the top of my agenda because, let’s face it, despite the commercial success of wind and solar power, electrification has not yet gained much traction. We haven’t been as successful in increasing the share of green power in total energy consumption as we have been in reducing the costs of producing that energy. If we allow that pattern to continue, it will inevitably slow down demand for new green power projects, and so anyone who is serious about accelerating the green transition needs to focus on electrification. I hope that this theme will be at the top of everyone’s minds during CEM9 and I don’t mind if this focus is at the expense of talk about new interconnectors, for example, an issue that has received more than its fair share of attention and investment in Europe. _
Q:
But surely investments in interconnectors are a prerequisite for electrification? A:
I am not so sure that they are. If electrification and storage develop as we hope, we will consume much more power locally and I cannot think of a reason to transport power across the entire continent of Europe. New interconnectors, to my mind, are therefore not vital.
Q:
And so, what should ministers at CEM9 agree to increase electrification?_
A:
Ministers at CEM9 could definitely help to accelerate electrification if they decided on targets for electrification and investments in storage solutions. Although formally agreed targets would be preferable, voluntary targets including an agreement on measurement methods, would be a huge step forward, as it would allow countries to learn from the best in class. We need to be able to compare how countries are managing electrification based on the same data, such as the number of electric cars on the road, the share of electric cars in a country’s fleet or investments in storage technologies. And countries need to report on these targets on a regular basis. We know from experience that international targets can focus minds both nationally and internationally and that this, in turn, can helps attract investments. Even though consumption patterns will be more local, international attention could, therefore, be a major driver for electrification.
Text: Anna Hedegaard
Note from editor:
While storage is widely seen as the essential missing piece in the energy transition puzzle, FORESIGHT believes that on closer examination the case for storage is far from clear cut. Read our in-depth analysis of the issue here.
This article is part of the Nordic Clean Energy Series
, published by FORESIGHT Climate & Energy to support Nordic Clean Energy Week. A week where energy leaders from around the globe gather in Copenhagen and Malmö to discuss the policies, business and technological solutions and challenges involved in tackling climate change.
Learn more about the week - Nordic Clean Energy Week
Take a look at FORESIGHT’s Nordic Clean Energy Special Edition
published in May 2018.