Carbon-Free Chronicles: The essential round up of news and reports relating to 24/7 clean energy

What we’re reading

Supporting energy security and decarbonisation in electro-intensive industries

• Electro-intensive industries (EIIs), such as steel and metals manufacturing, face significant challenges due to high electricity costs, increased competitiveness, and the pressures of EU climate policies and goals.
• The Steel and Metals Action Plan aims to guide member states, energy suppliers, and EIIs, in balancing costs, competition, and decarbonisation. The plan, as well as this motion, promotes the use of PPAs to mitigate supply and price volatility and support CFE investment.
• To realize the intended effects, energy suppliers will need to offer PPAs that go beyond the traditional format. Such PPAs should utilise multiple clean technologies to balance out intermittencies (e.g., wind+solar+hydro) and firming solutions like storage and backup generation.
• Granular volume data at hourly or sub-hourly intervals is crucial for improving the effectiveness of PPAs and enabling true 24/7 CFE matching. Thereby allowing organizations to pinpoint when clean energy is actually powering their operations and creating accountability that drives meaningful grid decarbonization.

Comprehensive CPPAs for Irish data centres

• As Ireland works to address data centre load growth, this recent webinar with Sean Kelly, Annie Scanlan, and Peter Harte, discussed potential impacts and solutions. Key takeaways:
• CPPAs with wind, solar and short-duration batteries can achieve a maximum of 80% matched demand. To increase coverage in the last 20%, CPPAs should consider hydro and nuclear, as well as long-duration energy storage as they become commercially available
• Data centre companies will lean more on suppliers for support, as those with 24/7 PPAs and grid connection assessments are more likely to receive planning permissions for new builds

What we’re writing (and saying)

Hourly EACs: More than traceability

• As Energinet moves closer to implementing its hourly GO system, Energy Track&Trace, in Denmark, this recent blog post details the benefits of a more granular certificate system.
• In the new system, "granular GOs" (GGOs) are issued to every grid-connected generation source and matched with consumption certificates, both at a meter ID level.
• While a primary purpose of GGOs is to improve green transparency on the supply and demand side, the new system also unlocks multiple benefits for local electricity. This could include proximity-based network charges, reduced congestion, and enabling energy communities and collective self-consumption.

Join us at upcoming events!

• Gulf Coast Power Association — Houston, April 14th-16th with Ariel Smith and Priya Patel
• REM Asia — Singapore, April 29th and 20th with Eleonore Lazat
• Intersolar — Munich, May 7th-9th with Pal Habsburg-Lothringen
• Energy Exchanges — Athens, May 8th with Toby Ferenczi