Renewable energy all day long. With Nunzia Riccio and Luca Santo of the "Market Operation and Analysis” team from Terna’s Dispatching department.
Renewable energy all day long. There are some holiday seasons, like Easter, in which renewables manage to meet over half of electricity demand, effectively fast-forwarding to the future when this situation will be the norm. But how does Terna manage the electricity system in these conditions, and what are the main challenges it faces?
We find out in the sixth episode of Sala dati with Nunzia Riccio and Luca Santo of Terna's "Market Operations and Analysis" team.
[Nunzia Riccio]: «The subject of the energy transition has never been more topical, and when it comes to the electricity sector, it means shifting from a production model based predominantly on fossil fuels to one where renewables take centre stage. There are some periods, like Easter, in which sun, wind and water manage to meet over half of electricity demand, effectively fast-forwarding to the future when this will be the norm. And we need to be ready.»
«We are Nunzia Riccio [Luca Santo] and Luca Santo and we work in the Market Operation and Analysis unit within Terna’s Dispatching Department, and today we’re taking a look at how Terna keeps Italy running even on days that present a very particular energy scenario.»
[Jingle with speaker] Sala Dati, the monthly podcast by Terna that explores the world of electricity consumption in Italy
[Santo]: «Renewables already meet around a third of electricity consumption in Italy, but this is an average and fluctuates a lot during the year, even on a day-to-day basis. This is because it's influenced by several factors, from household and business energy consumption trends to weather conditions. For example, you might get some days when demand is very low, like over Easter or on 25 April, but that coincide with sunny or windy conditions that generate significant volumes of renewable energy. On Easter Monday this year, Monday 10 April, 55% of Italy's electricity demand was met by renewable sources, and at around 2 in the afternoon even reached a peak of 90%. Terna guarantees the safe management of the electricity system by allowing the use of all the energy produced from renewable sources. But in a context characterised by high renewable production, what are the main challenges to effective system management?».
[Riccio]: «The careful planning of activities and increasingly accurate forecast analysis, in the short and medium term, are fundamental to managing a complex system such as the electricity system, and make it possible to maintain the balance between energy demand and production at all times, even and especially on those days of the year when renewables take the lead. So I'd say the first challenge is exactly that: the weather. The more accurate the forecast, the more accurate the profile we can extrapolate for a given day or period, in terms of energy supply and demand. Electricity consumption and renewable production will always have some degree of uncertainty, but with the help of the right tools and technologies we can made it increasingly predictable, and this allows us to really exploit the full potential of renewable sources. The development of increasingly innovative forecasting methods and the experience of our engineers in the control rooms across Italy's electricity system help to minimise errors and are essential to avoid having to “cut” - and therefore throw away - green energy production and to reducing the use of fossil fuels to the bare minimum».
[Santo]: «The next step is to coordinate production between the power plants to balance consumption while respecting the technical limitations of the grid and ensuring that voltage levels remain within the set limits. In this, Terna must also take into account possible inaccuracies in the forecasts, which by definition involve a certain margin of error. In the technical jargon this is what we call “reserve”, which Terna must calculate and supply to ensure grid security, especially on days with high uncertainty. There are also specific technologies that come to the rescue, such as synchronous compensators and statcoms, which Terna installs on strategic nodes of the grid. But that’s not all».
[Nunzia Riccio]: «In fact, in periods of high renewable production, it is also possible to reverse the electricity flows with other countries and so Italy, which is usually a net importer of energy, can even export it. And this is possible thanks to interconnections with foreign countries which, following market logics, allow energy to be transported from areas of high production to areas of higher demand. Italy currently has 26 active international interconnections and others are in construction. An increasingly interconnected European network also means more renewable energy for everyone in the system, which is better for the environment. But there are other tools as well - Luca, do you want to talk about these?».
[Santo]: «Using renewables to their full potential is simply not possible without grid infrastructures and storage facilities, or rather plants that are able to set aside electricity at peak production times and then deliver it according to system needs. At this point it's worth highlighting the increasing role of hydroelectric pumps. To go back to that Easter Monday we talked about, this year at 2 p.m. some of these systems operated to transfer water to high-altitude reservoirs. The same water can then be used in subsequent days to produce hydroelectric energy which can be fed into the system at hours of peak demand».
[Riccio]: «So, the tools are there and the future of the electricity system is clear: to meet the challenging European decarbonisation targets set out in the “Fit for 55” programme, approximately 70 GW of new renewable capacity will need to be installed in Italy by 2030, in particular wind and solar, in order to cover 65% of all electricity consumption with energy from clean sources. This means that days like those we had over Easter, characterised by high volumes of renewable production, will become the norm, and we can't afford to be unprepared. This is why detailed national planning is so important, enabling energy operators to coordinate fully to ensure that tomorrow's grid is increasingly efficient and sustainable».
[Riccio] «We’ve been Nunzia Riccio and Luca Santo and you’ve been listening to the sixth episode of Sala Dati, the podcast about electricity consumption in Italy explained by Terna professionals».