Digital opportunities to secure Europe’s power supply

Digitalisation offers many opportunities to secure Europe’s power supply over the coming seasons, Siemens has reported.

Speaking in a summit session on digitalisation at Enlit Europe in Frankfurt, Norbert Jung, VP of Product and Portfolio Management at Siemens Grid Software, said the management of the grid needs to be enabled end-to-end.

Moreover, in so doing, there is a need to rethink grid software, moving from a descriptive to an autonomous approach and from delivering hindsight to providing foresight.

“It’s about bringing together the process critical and business critical functions,” he said, citing examples such as digital twins and the integration of GIS for workforce management.

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Nevertheless, there are many current digital opportunities that can be taken advantage of by system operators for securing power supply in the immediate future to bridge the current ‘energy crisis’, he continued.

Digital opportunities

These can be grouped as measures to influence electricity demand over time, to increase grid security with more heavily utilised transmission grids and to reduce other threats to the security of supply.

Examples of each of these include:
● Measures to influence electricity demand over time – targeted information to consumers on the current generation and grid status to encourage behaviour change, implementation of meter data management systems for load monitoring and price signalling, LV network monitoring for situational awareness and IT-based controlled load shedding.
● Increased grid security with more heavily utilised transmission grids – implementation of inter alia dynamic line rating, protection studies to avoid false tripping, adaptive protection, phasor measurement units for dynamic stability, anti-disaster training of personnel and digital twins for model-based analyses.
● Reduction of other threats to supply security – improved management and safeguarding of critical assets, increased cybersecurity and early detection and defence of other acts of sabotage.

Ultimately, however, future-proofing the grid with digital technologies depends on the right regulatory framework and incentives, Jung pointed out.

Investment in digitalisation can not only shorten the investment period for system operators but also increase the share of opex. Currently, such investments are not incentivised.

“System operators need stability and certainty for their planning and investment decisions.”