Blackout puts outdated power grid in spotlight

ETSO President Daniel Dobbeni underlined that a country's choice of energy mix - the share of coal, renewables, nuclear, or other sources it chooses to produce its energy - is an essential element to account for when installing new grid capacity.

"Network operators need to know about future decisions concerning the energy mix so that we can design the network accordingly," Dobbeni said.

But according to Claude Turmes MEP (Greens, Luxembourg), the grid is simply ill-adapted to cope with renewable energies. He said future infrastructure investments should "take account of the grid's ability to cope with decentralised power generation" such as that coming from large offshore wind farms or small-scale solar panels installed on private homes.

Grids are currently designed to distribute electricity from centre to periphery. But wind farms or small domestic renewables installations typically follow the opposite route, creating problems when connecting to the network.

According to the Commission, "existing electricity grids are not keeping pace with changes within the energy industry," preventing the EU from producing more of its energy from renewable sources.

At EU level, research was launched to resolve the issue. "The situation that Europe faces today is that the fundamental architecture [of electricity networks] is based on the needs of large, mostly carbon-based power generation, which are often distant from the consumers they feed," the Commission said when launching SmarGrids, a European Technology Platform in April this year (EurActiv 7/04/06).

"Ultimately the system could be developed so that even individual homes that have their own electricity-generating sources, such as a wind turbine or solar panels, could sell unused power back to the grid," it said.

Airtricity, an international renewable energy company operating in the US and Great Britain, says the answer would lie in "a European supergrid" to accommodate large amounts of wind electricity produced from wind farms planned in the North Sea and the Baltic.

"By connecting and integrating geographically disperse wind farms across Europe… electricity is produced wherever the wind is blowing … ensuring a reliable and predictable source of energy," says Airticity.

In the UK, the Department of Trade and Industry and the national energy regulator, OFGEM, recently launched a call for evidence to identify barriers to decentralised electricity generation.