The grid is only truly full at a few moments each day, and not everywhere at the same time. In residential areas that mostly happens during the evening peak, when many people come home at once, switch on the lights, cook and plug in the car. But it also happens on a very sunny day, when all the solar panels on the roofs feed power back at the same time. For the rest of the day, a large part of the capacity is not in use at all.
Traffic jams on the power grid
Compare it to a traffic jam on the motorway. It does not form because the road is too narrow for the whole day. It forms because everyone leaves at five o’clock at the same time. On the power grid, it works in exactly the same way.
Johann Hurink and his group research how to make better use of the room in the existing grid through smart coordination, and how to make the move to a sustainable energy supply possible. He sees the same peaks on the car parks of the University of Twente. In the morning the electric cars arrive and start charging straight away.
“At that moment there is still little or no generation from the solar panels on site, so we use power from the grid for charging”, he says. Later in the day the panels generate plenty again, but by then the cars are already full and the generated power flows into the grid. Two peak moments appear on the grid this way.
Building more is expensive and slow
Building more is happening on a large scale. Until 2040 the grid operators are investing between 13 and 18 billion euros a year, around 235 billion euros in total. Even so, the waiting lists keep growing. An ordinary household now waits an average of 45 weeks for a new connection.
Why does it not go faster? Getting a permit often takes longer than the construction itself. On top of that comes a large shortage of technical staff. And the bill keeps rising, because the grid charges on your energy bill are expected to double towards 2040.
And can it really be the intention to invest so much money in capacity that is only used very rarely? Should we not also look for other ways to get this problem under control?
Smarter use delivers a lot
A first, easy and direct approach is to shift your use to the quiet moments on the grid in your neighbourhood, or to the times when a lot of solar power is being generated nearby. Then you need to build far less. Research shows that by 2030 we can already move around 2.3 gigawatts to off-peak hours, and by 2050 even 10.2 gigawatts. The cost of doing so is small.
So it matters that the supply and demand of electricity match each other better, both in time and in place. That is exactly what researchers like Johann are working on. The focus here is not on using less power, but on using it at a different moment.
“The move to a sustainable energy supply is a task for society as a whole, and it asks us to work together from every angle”, Johann says. Alongside new technical solutions, the laws and regulations also need to change, and businesses and we as a society need to change how we work and behave. “If we do this well, fewer cables need to go into the ground to reach a sustainable energy supply.”
We need to build and use it wisely
It is not a question of one or the other. The grid operators must keep building, because power demand is growing fast. But we also need to make sure the investments are useful and well used. So every peak we flatten together is a cable we do not have to lay, and that keeps the energy bill more affordable.
