Q&A: Is air con a risk to Switzerland’s energy grid? – Uplaza

The elevated temperatures this summer season prompted many people to crank up the air con. In Switzerland, the power used for cooling is approaching that for heating. What does that imply for energy grids?

Official figures from the Swiss climate workplace are placing: temperatures this summer season have been 1.6°C above the nationwide common for 1991–2020, and there was an intense warmth wave with peaks reaching or exceeding the 2003 data in a number of cantons.

Planet-wide, this was the second hottest summer season (after 2023) since data started. And because the temperature rises, the necessity for air con is surging. In accordance with Switzerland’s Federal Workplace of Power, cooling methods now account for practically 11% of the nation’s electrical energy use—not removed from the 14% determine for heating.

Air-con saves lives, nevertheless it additionally contributes to city warmth islands (thus aggravating international warming), provides to the stress on energy vegetation and will increase the load on energy grids. Will Switzerland’s grid have the ability to deal with the extra demand? We spoke with Prof. Mario Paolone from EPFL’s Distributed Electrical Techniques Laboratory to search out out.

The heightened use of air con implies that peak load on our grid will quickly happen in the summertime slightly than the winter. Is that trigger for concern?

So far as the grid is anxious, managing demand for cooling methods is not that totally different from managing demand for heating methods. However the problem is that the necessity for electrical energy is rising total, not simply due to air con, since a rising variety of processes are going electrical.

That is true for companies in addition to customers. Warmth pumps and electrical automobiles are extra environment friendly than gas-fired boilers and combustion engines, for instance. It is this electrification of processes that is driving the change.

How?

The extra demand is impacting native energy grids, which have been already congested. Current energy strains and transformers weren’t sized for the sort of load they’re now experiencing. Energy vegetation are additionally beneath higher stress as they need to provide the extra electrical energy and maintain sufficient reserves to accommodate the often-unpredictable spikes in demand.

If we need to fill the hole with renewable power, an estimated 40 GW of further solar energy will likely be wanted to satisfy Switzerland’s demand for electrical energy, together with electrical energy for heating methods, cooling methods and electrical automobiles. However that may make native energy grids much more congested and enhance the required reserves.

Can a number of the stress be mitigated by the truth that demand for air con happens when photo voltaic power is at its peak?

That is undoubtedly a constructive side of air con: its use is of course synchronized with durations of intense daylight. If Switzerland shifts extra of its power combine to solar energy, that may alleviate a number of the grid issues I discussed.

Property homeowners will need to set up photo voltaic panels concurrently air conditioners to be able to decrease their working prices. That may also scale back the necessity for power storage, because the energy may be consumed proper because it’s produced.

Provided that Switzerland has an influence surplus in the summertime, may we meet the extra demand with photo voltaic power and due to this fact ‘break even?’

That is what lots of people suppose as a result of most of us motive when it comes to web power. However energy demand and provide methods do not work on an combination stage. Sufficient electrical energy have to be out there to satisfy demand instantaneously or else we’ll expertise energy outages.

That is why grid operators have to make use of both a requirement administration system or an power storage system to deal with swings in provide and demand. For now, grid operators handle demand with what are often called major, secondary and tertiary reserves.

Might the reply be to decentralize extra of Switzerland’s energy community?

Completely. The goal of the Federal Act on a Safe Electrical energy Provide (Mantelerlass) that was adopted on 9 June is to create “energy communities” during which buildings share the ability they generate with one another as wanted, doubtlessly assembly all of their very own demand.

Know-how already exists to deal with points with synchronizing provide and demand whereas assembly the grid constraints I described earlier. We’ll undoubtedly see power communities being created throughout Switzerland to provide and handle their very own electrical energy—for not simply air con but additionally heating and electrical automobiles—and ease congestion on the nationwide grid.

Extra broadly, nevertheless, we’ll have to handle demand for energy basically extra successfully if we need to mitigate the affect on our grid and power reserves.

There’s additionally the problem of how prices are distributed amongst energy producers, energy customers and energy grid operators.

We now have the expertise to calculate the load issue of a grid based mostly on energy stream. This may be executed with locational marginal pricing, for example. We’re engaged on a venture with the Lausanne energy utility to make use of this type of pricing to maximise the advantages for all members in a given market whereas additionally enhancing the efficiency of the ability grid. The concept is to search out the easiest way to cut back the funding and working prices for a whole group.

We’ve got the solutions in concept, however we’re lacking the suitable authorized framework to implement them. A venture with the Lausanne energy utility is meant to check one choice beneath real-world situations.