In this era of urgent and ambitious climate goals, most paths to a decarbonised power system feature high shares of variable renewable energy, primarily wind and solar. To avoid high costs, new tools to capture the benefits of these clean resources are needed, to manage the new loads from electrification of heating and transport, and accommodate increasingly distributed system sources. Ensuring reliability will require faster response times and greater flexibility.

The International Energy Agency’s Wind Technology Collaboration Program Task 25 has explored these formidable challenges in their report Design and operation of energy systems with large amounts of variable generation. On 30 March 2022, the Electrification Academy welcomed lead author Hannele Holttinen to share the findings of IEA Wind TCP Task 25. She drew on the extensive information gathered in the report to share:

• Recent experience and study results from 17 countries on operating and planning systems with large amounts of variable renewable energy sources.
• How net-zero plans affect power system planning and operation.
• How to push limits towards near-100% renewables.