Entries tagged with "Electrical grid"

Power-to-X

Power-to-X turns surplus wind and solar electricity into hydrogen, chemicals, heat, and other useful products.

Final energy (gross energy)

Gross energy includes energy consumption within the energy sector along with distribution losses; final energy is the energy that reaches your doorstep as fuel or electricity. In other words, losses in production and transport are not included.

Challenges

Switching to 100 percent renewable energy and moving towards zero greenhouse gas emissions is a complete societal shift. Germany is made a lot of progress, but it still has a long way to go. Here are some of the stumbling blocks for the Energiewende.

Sector Coupling

Energy is consumed in three sectors:  transportation, industry, and to heat and cool buildings. Connecting these three sectors will be crucial for the energy transition’s success. The term describing this is “sector coupling” (or “Sektorkopplung” in German).

Grid and power storage

A power system designed around renewable energy must both be flexible and allow for power storage. Rather than relying on “baseload” power like coal and nuclear, Germany is trying to switch to a supply-based model.

Generation capacity

Also known as rated capacity, generation capacity is the maximum output a generator can produce under specific conditions.

Full-load hours

Full-load hours are a way of measuring energy that power plants create. They are used to show how many hours a plant would take to make a certain amount of energy if the plant is operating at full capacity.

Electrical grid

The electrical grid (or sometimes just “the grid”) is the network of power lines that moves electricity. In the classical grid, power stations generate electricity, which is transported to consumers.

Grid access

Grid access refers to a generator’s physical connection to the larger electrical grid. In Germany, if you install a solar panel, you are guaranteed that it will be connected to the grid, and that whenever it is sunny your power will be sold on the grid (instead of it being pushed out by coal power).