Let’s face it, we need to get rid of fossil fuels and we need to do it fast. But on the other hand, our planet is consuming more and more energy, as we grow and develop our economies. This is why we need to switch to clean energy as fast as possible.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?tab=chart

Electrifying everything, from cars to heating, is the obvious answer. Renewable energy is now the cheapest source of electricity in the world, making the move from fossil fuels to electricity increasingly clean and cheap. The prices of solar panels is dropping year after year at a unbelievable pace. This is incredible news, and prices are forecasted to continue on this trend in the coming years.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices?tab=chart

But there is one, major, bottleneck : the grid. As we are increasing relying on renewable energy, we are facing intermittency issues. When there is high wind and sunny weather, we are producing abundant quantities of cheap energy. But when the wind stops and the sun sets, we have to turn on gas and coal power plants, in order to answer the demand for electricity that doesn’t follow the same patterns.

The same volatility can be observed in households and companies relying on electricity to power their heating and electric cars. Most heaters turn on at the same moment in time, when it gets colder outside, and most cars are plugged in the same time : 6pm after work, creating huge peaks in electricity demands that the grid isn’t prepared to deliver.

You don’t have to get a PhD in engineering to know this basic principle : it’s never a good idea to create an equation where both sides show strong volatility and curves don’t match…

Typical electricity production curve, with solar peak at noon

Typical electricity demand curve, with peak at 6pm

The obvious answer, for now, is turning on and off gas power plants to handle peak loads of energy. But this is proving to be a very costly method in Europe, as most of the gas is imported and increasingly expensive.

<aside> 💡

This is why grid balancing is becoming increasingly expensive, and energy prices are constantly increasing for the end customer, even though it’s never been cheaper to produce clean energy !

</aside>