European Energy Briefs – Grids in the spotlight

Grids projects have been in the spotlight this last week with new insights from CurrENT and E.DSO on technology innovation and funding.

By now no-one can be in any doubt of the underlying key role of the grids in delivering the energy transition, both the transmission grids but also and especially the distribution grids, with the majority of new distributed generation to be connected at the MV and LV levels.

To achieve this innovative technologies and funding – both for the innovation and the grids themselves – are essential, with both facing competition from many other areas.

Indeed, the themes of E.DSO's FutureGrid Summit of last week – smart systems, resilience and customer empowerment – are illustrative, underscoring the essential role of digitalisation and innovation to boosting Europe’s competitiveness, ensuring smarter and more reliable distribution grids, and empowering energy customers as active market participants.

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In a letter to Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen and other senior officials just before its summit, E.DSO argued the need for “targetted but substantial investments” in grid infrastructure, with recognition of its essential role in the next EU budget.

“Europe’s global competitiveness depends on strong electricity grids, which form the backbone of a modern industrial economy. Without substantial investments in grid development, Europe risks falling behind globally, delaying progress towards energy independence and hampering the energy transition,” the letter states.

E.DSO offers three recommendations to secure the EU’s competitiveness in the next multiannual financial framework:

● Launch a ‘decentralised grid facility’ as a targeted programme designed specifically to meet the grid infrastructure financing needs of DSOs in the member states. While there are EU funding mechanisms targeting cross-border energy infrastructure, the emphasis on decentralised grids has been limited and the facility would address this imbalance.
● The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) should remain intact and be given an increased envelope. The facility has proven effective in supporting the projects of common interest but while the TEN-E regulation expanded the scope to many new technologies and areas, its budget allocation was not increased.
● The funding imbalance in supporting cohesion should be addressed. A recent European Commission evaluation of programmes under the Common Provisions Regulation revealed that only 4% of energy-related funding was dedicated to grids.

The letter concludes by emphasising the role of public funding alongside that from the private sector and stating that the organisation is developing detailed proposals to support the implementation of its recommendations.

“Grid investments are not just a cost, but a strategic investment in Europe’s future,” it concludes.

DSO innovative grid technologies

CurrENT has become the champion of the termed ‘innovative grid technologies’ – including those termed ‘grid enhancing technologies’ – that are mature and commercially available and that can be deployed now to improve grid optimisation and efficiency at the distribution level but that are not always widely known about.

In a February 2024 publication CurrENT highlighted a range of technologies, including digital twins, advanced conductors, dynamic line rating, monitoring sensors and modular power flow control, and now a year on the second edition has appeared with additions including high temperature superconductors, grid optimisation and the joint application of these technologies.

Mark Norton, VP European Business Development at Smart Wires and Chair of CurrENT’s DSO working group, says that the updates provide further depth to the recommendations.

For example, high temperature superconducting cables represent a significant advancement in electrical engineering, offering unparalleled efficiency and performance in power transmission and other applications – typically transporting three to five times higher currents than traditional cables with lower losses and also being more compact and thus easier to install.

Grid optimisation is a technique that has been used primarily at the transmission level but new and innovative solutions are both transposing traditional optimisation functions from the transmission grid to lower voltage levels as well as introducing new technologies that increase the ability to optimise and operate the grid closer to the ideal state.

The publication notes that while the category of innovative software solutions for grid optimisation is broad, it can be layered into three key capabilities, i.e. visibility, analytics and control.

On the application of mixed technologies, the paper highlights how this can lead to greater impact than individual solutions would independently.

Noting this section as a timely addition, Norton adds: “[It] highlights the need for a mixed deployment of innovative grid technologies across Europe’s grids, where a mixture of technologies together can be deployed to address targeted system needs and further increase overall network capacity.”

The publication is backed with case studies and experiences from CurrENT members and presents some recommendations for DSOs and the regulatory authorities towards technology deployment.

More generally CurrENT suggests that bespoke technical assurance work completed by a DSO is made available to peers to support their own technical assurance, through either CurrENT or a relevant DSO association.

The organisation also comments on the forthcoming DSO/TSO technopedia, action 7 of the grids action plan, calling for it to be fully implemented and underscoring the importance of having a clear focus on empowering DSOs to improve Europe’s energy infrastructure by promoting smart grids, network efficiency and innovative technologies.