The future electrical system must be able to meet demand for electricity in a way that also satisfies environmental concerns.
Capacity: expansion with emerging new requirements
Meeting the rise in global demand for electricity will mean adding a 1 GW power plant and all related infrastructure every week for the next 20 years. This must be achieved in the most economic way with the most environmentally friendly technologies available. The reduction of carbon emissions is an overriding aim in all these efforts.
Reliability: grids designed to run at full capacity
Today’s grids extend over thousands of kilometres. To transport the maximum possible energy, power flow must be carefully controlled along the length of the system. Automation infrastructure now available at the transmission level must be more widely used in distribution systems to provide seamless connections between power generators and individual consumers.
Efficiency: along the whole value chain
The efficient handling of electrical energy offers a huge saving potential. Today, almost 80 percent of primary energy is lost en route to the electricity consumer.
Realizing this potential requires optimal power plant processes, efficient transmission and distribution systems and technologies to improve the efficiency of the energy use itself.
Sustainability: renewable power integration
The International Energy Agency predicts that hydro power will remain the major source of renewable energy for the next two decades, followed by wind and solar. The challenges integrating these renewable energy sources into the electrical system are different for each technology but the system of the future must accommodate them all.