What has COVID-19 taught us about decarbonized electricity grids?

Future of electricity grids will be dominated by renewables. In Great Britain, the majority of the demand was covered by renewables, but this generation mix temporarily compromised the stability of the grid. These insights into a future of decarbonized grids highlight the challenges we face but also how we might solve them. COVID-19 is a harsh reality that we are all still living with. But interestingly, this unprecedented situation can teach us valuable lessons about a service that has little to do with healthcare: electricity. A case of particular interest is Great Britain, an island that experienced a severe lockdown from 23 March 2020 which lasted for almost three months. The lockdown had an effect never seen before on the electricity system: zero-carbon sources were by far the main source of power. This first lockdown – Great Britain is now coming out of its third – was a record-setting period. Great Britain saw the lowest national demand ever recorded , 13.4GW overnight on Sunday 28 June 2020 (in comparison, the lowest demand in 2019 was 18GW). Also, the lowest carbon intensity ever , on 24 May 2020, when just 46gCO2/kWh were produced on the transmission network. And the longest […]

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