ISTANBUL
Electricity grid operations across the world are facing challenges of operation and investing in energy industry requires flexibility, a senior official of the Australian Energy Market Operator said Wednesday.
Addressing the ongoing World Forum on Energy Regulation in Istanbul during a special session titled "Flexibility changes in electricity networks," David Swift, executive general manager for corporate development at the Australian Energy Market Operator, said that flexibility was the ability of a power system to maintain continuous service in the face of rapid and large swings in supply or demand.
Swift highlighted the fact that despite the changing energy environment, customers expected the same reliability, security and power quality in electricity.
“When the expectations from the grid operators are these, the challenge for regulators and grid operations is to deliver these efficiently now through the transition to the power grid of the future," he said.
He said that he was not suggesting a single operator and the grid should apply everywhere.
“A new interconnector from Norway to U.K. would give access to Norwegian green hydropower at the flick to replace generation in the U.K. when the wind was not blowing," he said.
Patricia de Suzzoni, adviser to president of the French Energy Regulatory Commission, said that with the help of flexible systems, consumers could see the real price of energy and help them adjust better.
De Suzzoni said that every year France gained more than 150 megawatts of installed capacity of electricity; every year new energy players enter the French energy market. New entrants to the market get to benefit from a fair competition with retailers, she said. "That means no entry barriers but also no unjustified advantages," she added.
During his speech, Keith Bowen, chief adviser of Power System Economics from the South African state-owned energy company ESKOM, said that there was a requirement of flexibility in electricity networking systems.
Bowen said that inflexible thermal generation, growing contribution from variable renewable electricity generation with high capital cost and expensive alternatives to flexible power generation led one to think about flexible electricity networking systems.
He believed that flexibility was the key to a reliable operation of future power systems with very high penetration levels of variable renewable energy sources.
The four-day forum, which aims to develop a common approach to energy regulation by bringing together regulatory representatives from around the world, will be finalized on May 28.
