IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2014 - 104

in my view

Nouredine Hadjsaid, Jean-Claude Sabonnadiere, and Sebastien Henry

European power grid
many changes ahead

The european elecTric power
system [comprising generation, transmission, and distribution (GTD)] is
undergoing remarkable changes to support the energy transition put forward
by the policy makers. For this system, it
definitely represents a tremendous challenge to reach the assigned ambitious
objectives, in terms of security of supply and sustainability as well as in the
affordable and efficient use of energy.
in this issue of IEEE Power & Energy
Magazine, these challenges as well as
the current evolution of the european
union (eu) GTD have been detailed.
when relevant, a special focus on systems such as the German system and its
"energiewende" transition was provided.
Several initiatives have been launched
by the european commission to define
the way forward to support this energy
transition as well as by eu industry
and utilities associations and groups
such as enTSo-e, eDSo, and eeGi.
These initiatives cover short-, medium-,
and long-term perspectives up to the
year 2050. Some eu industrial instruments have already been launched such
as the supervision of transnational eu
power grids, the enforcement of information exchange, and the emergence
of the supergrid concept to integrate
offshore wind generation to the main
eu grid.
however, it should be noted that the
eu GTD is facing additional challenges
where the existing initiatives only partially address some of these critical
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2013.2294383
Date of publication: 19 February 2014

104

ieee power & energy magazine

issues. indeed, the fast development of
renewable energies of an intermittent
nature [such as wind and photovoltaics (pVs)] often requires additional
high-voltage transmission lines that are
increasingly becoming more difficult
to build, mainly for environmental and
social acceptability reasons. as a consequence, a growing gap appears between
the dynamics of the development of
these intermittent energies and the
achievement of the needed transmission
lines. in fact, while the time required
to complete a transmission line ranges
between five to seven years in normal
conditions (no opposition) to infinite
(never to be built), the time needed to
build these renewable energies is only a
few years (often fewer than three years).
The situation is similar at the distribution level where additional capacity is
required to accommodate distributed
generation (DG) while the initial opinion was that DG may require less additional capacity since it is supposed to be
sited closer to the customer.
on the other hand, the eu power
grids are more and more interdependent,
increasing their vulnerability to outages that may occur outside a specific
member-state power grid (similar to the
italian 2003 blackout or the 2006 outage triggered in Germany that impacted
the whole eu power grid). in addition,
the variability of wind and pV power
outputs can not only affect one region
but its impact may be spread throughout
several countries, putting the whole system at high stress if not at risk. another
risk that is already touching some eu
countries is that the operation time of
1540-7977/14/$31.00©2014IEEE

some classical generation units such as
gas turbines is below their profitability
threshold as a consequence of the highlevel generation of renewable sources
that forces the owners to envisage closing these classical units. This situation
may appear to be a positive impact with
respect to sustainability targets; in reality, it has adverse effects. indeed, these
classical units are valuable for the grid
security, especially for dynamic operation and control purposes. as a consequence, a different business model, such
as capacity value, is needed for these
units to reinforce grid security.
Distribution grids are facing a similar situation with respect to the rapid
changes in the energy paradigm. These
changes are technical and industrial as
well as economical and institutional.
Distribution grids have never been confronted with such rapid changes and a
significant number of simultaneous
challenges. The traditional role of distribution operators is clearly challenged
and rapidly evolving. in addition, the
presence of information technology (iT)
factors in the framework of smart grids
is adding some stress in the perspective
of merging energy and iT.
overall, the eu GTD is entering into
some turbulence. it appears that just
keeping the security of the whole eu
power grid while dealing with all these
challenges in the context of responsibility partitioning is more and more complex and requires joint actions, including
research and development activities,
from the entire electricity sector.
p&e

march/april 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2014