Powering the future: could Europe's power grid go dark?

In February 2017 a blackout in Brussels left whole neighbourhoods dark, their streets lit only by headlights and torches. It could look like the symptom of a sick system. The Belgian transmission system operator Elia disagreed. “The power outage in Schaerbeek was caused by a short circuit in one of our high-voltage sub-stations. All measures have been put in place to prevent any recurrence,” said Elia spokeswoman Kathleen Iwens. “The Belgian high voltage grid has a reliability percentage of 99.999%.”

A trade-off with the bill

Others in the power industry said some risk of blackout will always remain, because of the effort to keep customers’ bills down. “Of course, we can build power systems that are working 100 percent of the time, but then the cost would be beyond what consumers are probably willing to pay. So, it’s always a balance between the cost of such a power system and the risks of a blackout from time to time,” said Sonja Berlijn, research and development director at Statnett, the Norwegian state enterprise responsible for high-voltage transmission. “We’re not having more blackouts than we did before, it’s been stable for a very long period of time.”

Europe’s energy sector still could not stand still if it was to meet future demand, and with greenhouse gas cuts in view it was expected to drive a low-carbon economy.

Norway leads in renewable energy, with around 99% of its generation said to come from renewable sources, mostly hydropower. Over the following five years Statnett planned to invest about five billion euros in power lines, subsea cables and substations, both refurbished and new. “So, to be able to connect new industry and the new power plants, the electricity will flow in a different way in the network. We’ll need overhead lines to have a stable network and to transmit all this power or energy from one place to another,” said Berlijn.

Both Elia and Statnett were working with the European project BEST PATHS, which set out to develop and deploy new technologies for a wider integration of renewable energy.

More players, more complexity

By 2050 most of Europe’s needs were expected to be met from green sources. Transmission grids would have to carry large amounts of wind and solar power and integrate it with microgrids.

The variability of these sources, and where they are located, bring real difficulties. “The increase of renewable energy, with fluctuating production levels and partly decentral production, has made the electricity system much more complex to manage,” Iwens explained. “More and more players are involved, a growing number of elements determine if the system will remain in balance or not.”

She went on: “Further market integration at European level will be necessary, and a strengthening of our cross-border capacities, to be able to get cheap renewable energy anywhere in Europe. Also, the grid infrastructure needs to be strengthened to meet these increasingly fluctuating energy levels. Elia is implementing the largest investment programme in its history: 2.5 billion euros in Belgium in the coming five years, dedicated in large part to building interconnections and making sure that renewable sources can get access to the grid.”

Statnett, for its part, was building two new international interconnectors, one to Germany due in 2020 and one to the UK planned for 2021.

“The EU has a target for additional interconnection and will offer financial and administrative help where interconnection is lacking. That should help build links where there are bottlenecks and this is welcome,” said Janet Wood, editor of the UK energy information service New Power.

Wood called the accommodation of a growing share of renewables one of the industry’s “great success stories” so far. But she warned: “as the proportion of renewables increases, there will be more to be done to make sure the system can remain within technical parameters at least cost to consumers.”

Keeping bills low while winning support for more power lines: the green transition would not be an easy sell to Europe’s consumers, even with a growing appetite for renewable energy.

Both Statnett cables were built. NordLink to Germany (623 km, 1,400 MW) and North Sea Link to Britain (720 km, 1,400 MW) each entered operation in 2021. A larger failure than Schaerbeek’s is examined in the Iberian blackout guide.