Bridges and Bottlenecks is the latest podcast series by Energy Voice Out Loud in partnership with DNV. Each episode looks to address the hard-hitting issues within the energy transition. Technology exists that will be the bridge to take us there, but there are still a number of bottlenecks that stand in the way of progress.
Joining Energy Voice’s print features lead, Ryan Duff, is DNV’s senior vice president, and regional director for UK and Ireland energy systems, Hari Vamadevan, and chief technology officer at Energy Systems Catapult Jon Saltmarsh.
As this series comes to an end, the trio look back on previously discussed topics and what needs to happen going forward while highlighting the importance of communication to the energy transition.
Calling attention to the title of the series Vamadevan argued that “there’s a danger we always talk too much about the bottlenecks.”
He said: “The clearest signal is about the bridges, and the bridges are about the bridge between government business and the consumer and the bridge between energy vectors because we need all of it to do the energy transition.”
Saltmarsh agreed saying that lack of clear signals has the potential to be the biggest bottleneck of the transition.
He explained: “There has been a very clear signal for some time now that by 2050 we’ve got to have decarbonised the economy. That’s too long term, what’s going to happen over the next five years?
“We know that we will have a huge amount of surplus electricity by 2030 but currently no one is really building the long-duration storage that’s going to be needed by that time. That’s about the confidence that we really will take the decisions to use this electricity in 2030, rather than continuing to curtail it and rely on existing gas plants to deliver the peaking.
“So, it’s consistency of government policy and clear signals that everyone understands buys into.”
The importance of public engagement
A focus throughout the discussion was on the importance of taking the public along with industry and government on the road to net zero.
Vamadevan explained that when in attendance at an energy conference, everyone in the room will “violently agree” as they all understand “the different energy vectors and we understand the whole system approach to an energy system that you need.”
He added: “Part of the difficulty is when I find myself engaged in, often situations in a more public domain, the question we’re being asked is often quite narrow, it’s often something versus something else or is something better than something else.
“To take a step back, one of the really important things to know to think about an overall electrified system (especially one based on renewables), is it will be cleaner by definition because you’re looking at green power.
“It will be more efficient because producing electrons, moving them and consuming them will be much more efficient than using anything to do with fossil fuels and all of the conversions that take place.
“And the third is, it will be cheaper. The frustration is, at the moment, we have an energy system that is 80% fossil fuels and 20% non-fossil fuels, changing that does cost money and it will cost large amounts of money.”
He said it is important to present these individual challenges within the context of the direction the country’s energy system is travelling.
“We do need to quadrupole the renewables production and triple the grid,” the DNV man explained.
He later explained the importance of utilising all of the UK’s resources in order to bring about a successful energy transition.
Vamadevan added: “There will be no transition without oil and gas in the future, there will be no transition without the grid tripling, there will be no transition without renewables and in the UK there won’t be a transition without nuclear.”
Listen to the full conversation on your podcast platform of choice.
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