BRENDON JAMES
Imagine a future where we have fully adopted rooftop solar, wind farms, and behind-the-meter and utility-scale battery storage in TT. A future where we have created a legislative environment that allows for sustainable energy technologies to thrive. This is the future we all would like to see, and this is the future we are heading toward. However, does it mean our work is done regarding decarbonizing the power sector? How do we manage these diverse resources and maintain high levels of reliability for the business and residential sectors?
Environmentalists, policymakers, and all persons concerned about climate change are tirelessly working toward decarbonising the power sector. An electrify-everything strategy is one of the critical policy directions of developed and developing states. But it is important that we all understand what the power and utilities grid is. It is described by some as “the world’s largest machine” – but this machine operates in real-time based on supply and demand. We cannot shut down the grid to retool or redesign it. As some would say, “we must build the plane and fly it at the same time.”
We live in times of rapid change, and grid operators must find ways to ensure they meet the mandate to remain reliable, even if they utilize intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind (with the support of battery storage). How can you create economic incentives for grid operators to embrace change and make all stakeholders concerned about climate change happy? According to Forbes contributor Llewellyn King, “Environmentalists are elated with something else that is happening in the utility space: distributed energy resources (DER). Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, said it is taking advantage of the slack in the electric system.”
[caption id="attachment_1025318" align="alignnone" width="997"] Figure 1: Distributed energy resources and its circulated benefit. -[/caption]
What is DER? Electric vehicles, solar technology, wind technology, battery systems (utility-scale and behind-the-meter homes) are all called DERs. Thorvald Thorsnes summarises the definition as follows: “DERs can be bundled together into something called virtual power plants (VPPs). These VPPs can again be used in the demand response market, to balance the grid and increase the mix of renewable energy.”
Figure 1 highlights how the virtual power plant works. Each solar panel, electric vehicle battery, and home or commercial battery storage system can be a potential source of power for a grid operator. During peak electricity demand scenarios, a grid operator can quickly respond to supply shortfalls by utilizing these potential power sources which would have already been connected to the grid via a feed-in tariff framework. A feed-in tariff is a policy tool which promotes renewable energy investment by paying small-scale renewable energy producers to transfer their excess electricity to the grid
(Figure 2). With the proper incentive and policy framework, it can be beneficial to the c
