How do the US, EU and China’s grid priorities compare?

PTR Inc. Chief Product Officer Saqib Saeed highlights how the priorities for grid evolution will be completely different depending on whether your lens falls on the US, Europe, or China.

“Not all distribution grids are created equal,” says Saeed, referencing the vastly different contexts within which grid operators operate in the US, Europe and China – arguably three of the biggest competitors on the road to net zero.

“In the US, you have a lot of overhead equipment installed. That means grid resilience is a big topic…” adds Saeed, a Product Officer for PTR Inc., a market research firm specialising in the power grid and new energy sector.

Indeed, extreme hazards such as wildfires and catastrophic weather conditions such as this year’s hurricanes Helene and Beryl have meant that US grids have had to take on an adaptive planning approach, ensuring resilience in the face of chaos.

And although European countries are no strangers to extreme weather or wildfires, for Saeed their priorities have been more of a transformative nature.

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“But that’s not so much the case for Europe. In the US a lot of investment is spent on, for example, vegetation management. Why? Because of events like wildfires. That’s a big threat to the distribution grid, whereas in the case of Europe that’s not one of the top priorities.

“Digitalisation is one of the top priorities. We already see some big DSOs moving in this direction.”

Then, there is the case of China. Saeed says that “the dynamics are a little bit different: state-owned, state-run, State Grid of China - really focusing a lot on the high-power grid.

“The transmission grid is really structured in China - it’s already extremely digital. You have ultra-high-power connections connecting different parts of the country, so it’s different requirements of different power grids, because that’s how these were originally structured.”

This is where Saeed’s allusion to equality in power grid development repeats.

“It’s not very fair to compare apples to apples”, he says, as priorities for grid development would depend on geographies and types of generation – some countries focused more on hydro power while others, historically, have looked to nuclear.

However, he adds, “obviously everyone has a priority. The US has a higher priority on grid resilience, Europe has a higher priority on digitalisation, whereas China is really focusing on high-power long-distance transmission.”

Watch the rest of the interview with Saeed for his market insights as well as his take on China’s EV rush and e-mobility developments.