Ensuring Resilience of a Stressed Electricity System
How Engine Power Generation Contributes to a Reliable Electricity Supply
The Iberian blackout in April this year has significantly increased Europe’s awareness of the importance of ensuring the reliability of Europe’s electricity supply. Therefore it is an important signal that the European Commission is -in parallel to an action plan for even more electrification – preparing a revision of the European security of energy supply legislation.
Security of energy supply is no longer only a geopolitical question of access to affordable primary energy; it is also no longer ensured by simply adding more electricity grids, interconnectors, and renewable energy, and gives way to some considerations on cybersecurity.
Last week ENTSO-E published its factual report about what happened during the Iberian blackout. There are still many open questions and there seems to be no easy nor straight forward answer to what caused this specific blackout, and what measures would have avoided it. But balancing energy, and system services like voltage control or inertia play a key role in managing such situations.
To avoid similar future events, it is important to ensure the availability of these solutions. Flexible and firm generation capacity, and available system services are key factors for a resilient energy system – and engine-based power generation contributes to managing the impact of disturbances in the electricity system in different ways
1. Avoiding Grid Challenges:
Balancing the Electricity Grid through Flexible and Reliable Generation Capabilities
With ever increasing renewable electricity generation, there are growing predictable gaps between the electricity demand and the available fluctuating generation. This requires flexible, fast reacting solutions that can balance demand and supply, bridging those gaps. Balancing and capacity markets shall ensure their availability. It is important to have those solutions providing reliable power as long as the gap lasts – which can be minutes tohours, or even days.
Our Solution: Engine power plants can be activated within minutes, ensuring the required supply to meet demand; responding in seconds when combined with supporting batteries. While the capacities of batteries only last for the first minutes and hours, engine power plants can cover the longer gaps. Once the supply problem is solved, they can be switched off equally fast, avoiding an oversupply. Engine power plants are the perfect complement to fluctuating renewable power.
2. When Unexpected Disturbances Occur
Stabilising the Grid in Times of Trouble Through the Provision of System Services
When the unexpected happens and disturbs the grid, it is important to rely on so called “non-frequency service”s like voltage control, reactive power, and inertia, to avoid that the unexpected event on the supply or demand side harms the overall functionality of the electricity grid.
Our solution: Engine power plants provide those electricity services better than most other technologies. While in the future additional technical options like synthetic inertia might become available, solutions are required today and ideally provided by a technology that can also serve other needs such as providing heat – as engine-based cogeneration plants do.
3. Once the Blackout Happens:
Ensuring Essential Back-Up Power when the Grid is not Available Anymore
In cases when – despite all efforts – a grid failure cannot be avoided, it is essential to locally ensure that critical infrastructure remains up and running. Hospitals, water supply, data centres, mobile phone infrastructure, and airports all depend on emergency and back-up power solutions that ensure continual functioning in times without electricity from the grid.
Our solution: For almost all mentioned cases, the preferred choice of customers is engine-based power generation. For decades, this is the preferred reliable technology providing emergency backup – without capacity limitations of 4 or less hours.
4. Restoring the System:
Building Up the Grid with Black-Start Capable Generation
Once the worst case – a complete blackout – occurs, the restart of a grid follows a specific, necessary process. It starts with building up smaller decentral grids, requiring generation capacities that can start without requiring electricity to start up itself.
Our solution: This so-called “black-start capability” is provided only by a few technologies, such as hydropower, and gas power generation. The big advantage of engine power generation is that these plants are often decentral and therefore ideal for restarting regional grids which will then be combined to rebuild the full network.