Page 63 - North American Clean Energy May/June 2020 Issue

What are the implications?
Some of these changes actually make the job of grid management more challenging - larger shares of intermittent renewables must be balanced, along with different ramping patterns (e.g. amplified Duck Curve) and system stability issues from lower demand troughs. Some of these factors will become more difficult as the seasonal transition continues (e.g. more solar PV output not yet balanced by the additional summer air conditioning load), and lower overnight demand creates voltage management issues for transmission operators.
Key questions right now include how much of the home working trend will stick after the crisis? How much of the observed 'demand efficiency' and renewable energy transition is simply an acceleration of existing trends, and how many of the new utility operational measures will persist beyond the COVID-19 crisis?
There is also a clear pandemic disruption within the business of the energy sector, with reports of reduced solar PV installations, deferred grid maintenance and upgrades, shuttered EV production, sales, and deliveries.
Beyond these reported fact-based changes, there is the general slowing of procurement and implementation of
grid modernization programs, including smart grid and digitalization initiatives (due to travel, physical work environment restrictions, and 'critical work only' orders). These are the very measures that will add resiliency for customers and grid operators to future shocks.
What about long-term?
While it is difficult to know exactly what the long-term effects might be, one thing we can predict is that investment in clean energy is likely to take a dip
in 2020 as a result of construction and supply chain constraints.
Most analysts believe the fundamentals remain unchanged, that there will be a bounce back after the restrictions pass. Some go further and link the damaging effect of the crisis on hydrocarbon energy sources, and a heightened awareness of sustainable living, to a speeding up of the clean energy transition.
Hopefully, the short-term robustness
of the grid continues, and the disruptive effects on the energy business are quickly fixed. Ideally, the new normal will include an acceleration of the clean energy transition with added emphasis on digitalization and decentralization, resulting from greater value being placed on virtualized living and working, and from local, resilient solutions.
A clear outcome from the Coronavirus outbreak is that the sector has come together quickly and collaboratively to create new methods and processes to continue development, delivery, and support in virtual and constrained circumstances. Long may that agile, flexible, rapid problem solving, and grid security and improvement mindset continue.
Dr. Graham Ault is Executive Director at Smarter Grid Solutions, a software company that provides technology that allows distribution utilities and owner/operators to interface DER to both markets and networks.
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