"Global renewables growth faces several large challenges". That was indicated in one of the first slides of yesterday's webinar "Towards 2050: Megatrends for Energy" organized by BMI / Fitch Solutions.
It caught our special attention the top challenge: "Grid limitations including connection wait times, curtailment & inefficiency".
And because of the extreme weather events that have been living throung, hurricanes and super floods impacting land that is drier and drier, with less and less trees, we immediatelly tought about two recent catastrophes:
- Aug. 8 fire that hit the Hawaian island of Maui, the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century
Technical investigations are still under way, but there is room for some questions:
Would there be a connection of these two events, with grid limitations?
What would be the power grid situation of an "historical city" like Lahaina?
Can the power grid of Ceará bear the regional ramp-up of renewabels, wind and sun? (Ceará is also a key Brazilian hub of green hydrogen)
By the way, it was also quoted in the event mentioned above that "as of December 2022, there is a total 1350GW of planned generation capacity awaiting interconnection in the US".
To our surprise, we noted that the international midia is starting to refer to videos of downed power lines as possible cause of deadly Maui wildfires, captured in its early moments. The Hawaiian Electric Co. is facing criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. A class-action lawsuit has already been filed seeking to hold Hawaiian Electric Co. responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people.
Time to consider having batteries at home (like in cars)? Or long Undersea power cables, like we already reported connecting Australia and Singapore?
Fitch Solutions webinar is available on-demand here as well as reference to BMI's Megatrends Report and Country Risk & Industry Research. And for the presentation slides, click on the image below.
By the way, great overall contents, including some new information about hydrogen and carbon markets, which we may elaborate in anothe articles.
