Energy Management Systems

Using a VPP to regulate thousands of data points according to price signals can enable generation asset owners to take care of their systems within seconds and with very high granularity.

With buildings responsible for 36% of EU greenhouse gas emissions and half the bloc’s energy demand, European cities will have to accelerate deployment of renewable energy and foster substantial investment in energy efficiency to become carbon neutral by 2050. A new report has found ‘solar skins’ are well positioned to help achieve that goal and multiply the contribution of rooftop solar.

In our series of renewable energy and geopolitics interviews, Indra Øverland – head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs – explains why hydropower can be the perfect match for intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. Hydropower assets are one of the biggest geopolitical stories of the energy transition but receive almost no attention. Nations with strong hydro potential may become linchpins of regional renewable energy.

After earmarking €3 million last year and €4 million in 2017, the Italian region of Lombardy has decided to further support residential and commercial storage projects linked to renewables.

The Finnish company has commissioned a large scale storage project to reduce curtailment of wind and solar assets on Bonaire. The system will use machine-learning based energy management software to provide grid services and manage all of the island’s power generators.

Norwegian hydropower company Statkraft has revealed more details of its solar-storage-wind-gas network. Previously announced plans to potentially double capacity this summer were not mentioned in the update.

Swedish company Azelio is studying whether storage could ensure complete self-sufficiency for the 36,000-strong Azraq camp, which already draws 70% of its electricity from solar generation.

The world’s biggest solar market is on track for an unsubsidized future but policymakers continue to grapple with grid planning. A report by the German Energy Agency has offered suggestions on how China’s approach to grid design could be tweaked to ensure priority dispatch for PV while slashing administrative costs and reining in renewable energy losses.

This year’s New Energy Outlook report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts renewables can keep us on track for less than two degrees of global heating for the next decade. But after that, other technologies will have to do their bit.

German power distributor Energy2market intends to develop its international activity under its new French owner. The founding shareholders and Trailstone UK will sell their stock to EDF subsidiary Pulse Croissance.