Since the discovery of electricity, the world flourished like never before. Technologies are getting better by the year and comfort was never that taken granted. After the diseases and wars that killed millions of people, the world is now facing another disaster: climate change. This is the primary reason why humanity needs to upgrade its energy sources into cleaner and renewable sources because the second reason is the depletion of fossil fuel reserve.
- Need for cleaner resources
Fossil fuels were the main source of energy whether to generate heat, electricity or mechanical power. They were cheap and easy to transport. However, over the last years their depletion was observed all over the mining regions. In fact, the drilling depth has increased and it is more and more costly to bring petroleum to the surface. At first impression, we can say boldly that renewable resources are the solution to this energy crisis. Little do people know that the technology to generate energy from wind, sun, tides, etc are too recent for engineers to design and control them in order to reach maximum efficiency. Today, the efficiency of solar cells are about 20-25% at the best. Moreover, wind turbines can convert only 16/27 of the wind power because of Betz’s law but the reality is 1/3. Additionally, electrical power needs to be reliable. No one wants to come home and not have power because it is at night and there is no sun, or because there is no wind. Even if we manage to extract the maximum power from renewable sources, they are intermittent and this can ruin the little hope that is.
- Testing the waters
Researchers, engineers, companies are working on this problem. Therefore, even if it is desirable to use clean energy, we cannot rush anything. Until the right time comes, it is trivial that we associate renewable energy generation with fossil fuel and nuclear energy. In the meantime, projects are ongoing. To name a few, RTE, the transportation operator in France has a smart grid laboratory; VENTEEA is a project launched by ERDF, the French national distribution system to test a smart grid; VERDI is a project to ensure the integration of electric vehicle. This is just some cases in France, all over the world, there are projects in order to find out the potential and the possible problems we can encounter when using renewable energy and electrifying our transportation systems. Recently, people on social media were posting the news about France willing to install 1000km of solar road. People reacted differently to the news. Some applauded the initiative; others thought it was a money waste. What we need to keep in mind is that such projects are for “live laboratory”. In fact, engineers cannot study those structure and the social reactions related to these changes in the laboratory. They chose to test them for real. Whether those projects will be successful or not, it does not matter. What matters is that they lay down the path to a better transition towards a more sustainable future.
These are not the only problems that will be faced. Beside economic problems, such as the rise of electricity prices (because subsidies cannot go on forever), other technical problems such as power losses, voltage drop, reactive power variation, electromagnetic interferences await for us in the near future. Those are the main reasons why integration of renewable energy are so important. In fact, their intermittency, the generators, the power converters all contributes to all sort of disturbances in the power grid.
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