System-Level Strategies for Sustainable Grid Solutions

In today's article, my colleagues articulate why it is essential for companies investing in clean power to take a holistic grid-level perspective rather than a company centric view. We consider a series of scenarios to compare the actual impacts of hourly matched energy supply & demand vs. grid-level approaches to power purchasing and dispatch. We find that when corporate players invest in and operate clean assets (wind, solar, nuclear, and other low-carbon technologies) at the grid level, there are benefits to both emissions and costs. In one of the more intriguing findings, we observed many instances where batteries were operating "against" each other when optimized to match individual customer load profiles. One site would be charging while another was discharging, creating waste through overbuild and unnecessary battery cycling. In fact, such charging-related battery storage losses were 22% lower when the system was optimized at the grid level versus when individual customers were trying to manage their own energy. To achieve net-zero power systems economically over the coming decade, we will require assets that are able to support deep decarbonize of power systems, including e.g., long-duration energy storage (LDES). At the same time - clearly - we should not wait to invest at-scale in the near-term in renewables and lithium-ion battery systems. From my perspective, we need clean power procurement leaders to continue their investments into the earlier stage technologies required to economically achieve full decarbonization, including LDES. Without such leadership, costs of LDES technologies will not achieve the technology maturity and learning curves required. However, when storage technologies have been built, it makes sense that these assets operate to minimize emissions of the grid as a whole, rather than following the load profile of individual customers.

🔌 Grid operators are implementing various strategies to manage the declining inertia caused by the increased penetration of variable generation (VG) resources, such as wind and solar. These strategies fall into three main categories: maintaining inertia, providing more response time, and enhancing fast frequency response. To maintain inertia, operators can ensure that a mix of synchronous generators is online to exceed critical inertia levels. Additionally, synchronous renewable energy sources and synchronous condensers can be deployed to provide inertia. To provide more response time, operators can reduce contingency sizes and adjust underfrequency load shedding (UFLS) settings. Finally, enhancing fast frequency response involves leveraging load resources, extracting wind kinetic energy, and dispatching inverter-based resources to improve the grid's ability to respond to frequency changes. 🍃 Extracted wind kinetic energy refers to the capability of wind turbines to provide fast frequency response (FFR) by utilising the kinetic energy stored in their rotating blades. This approach can be particularly effective in addressing the challenges posed by declining inertia in power systems with high wind penetration. By extracting kinetic energy, wind turbines can respond rapidly to frequency deviations, thereby helping to stabilise the grid. This method can be used in conjunction with other resources to enhance overall system reliability and maintain frequency within acceptable limits. 💡 High deployment of variable generation (VG) resources can be effectively managed by combining extracted kinetic energy from wind turbines and increasing output from curtailed wind plants. The figure below illustrates that when these two strategies are combined, they significantly mitigate frequency decline. The simulation shows that relying solely on extracted kinetic energy results in frequency falling below UFLS (underfrequency load shedding), while using only FFR barely avoids UFLS. However, when both methods are applied together, the frequency decline is minimal, demonstrating that these approaches can serve as viable alternatives to traditional inertia and primary frequency response from conventional generators. #gridmodernization #stability #gridforming #powerelectronics #renewables #cleanenergy #solidstate

A Practical Solution to Meet Data Center Energy Demand: Rather than expanding generation and transmission capacity to meet the rapidly growing energy demand of data centers, I propose here a more efficient and resource-saving alternative. This approach involves optimizing the design of a Solar PV-Battery Energy Storage (BES) system to supply 80-85% of the daily energy requirements of a data center, while limiting grid dependency to a maximum of 20%. This hybrid system significantly reduces the need for large-scale infrastructure upgrades. Here’s an illustrative example I designed for a 1 GW data center in Saudi Arabia: - Solar PV System: 3.9 GWdc / 3.52 GWac - Battery Energy Storage (BES): 3 GWac / 5.6 GWh - Transmission Line Capacity: 200 MW (20% of the load) The system configuration, as shown in figure, is an AC-coupled system. The PV-BES management system is programmed to ensure that the load power drawn from the grid never exceeds the transmission line capacity of 200 MW. To validate this design, I conducted a full-year simulation with a 5-minute time step for a specific location in Saudi Arabia. Results demonstrated that the State of Charge (SOC) of the battery system never dropped below 15%. The system was designed with the PV and BES capacities approximately three times the load to provide additional power and energy redundancy, achieving an optimal balance between reliability and cost-effectiveness. This optimized hybrid system represents a sustainable and scalable solution to meet the increasing energy demands of data centers while minimizing grid strain and infrastructure costs. Another potential solution involves deploying Battery Energy Storage (BES) systems and data centers adjacent to existing utility-scale PV plants. This approach leverages already-developed infrastructure, optimizing the utilization of renewable energy while minimizing additional land use and transmission requirements.

Optimizing Energy Networks for a Sustainable Future My recent advancement in energy systems modeling—a high-performance Energy Network Optimization Model, built in #Julia using #JuMP and #HiGHS. This model integrates fossil generation, renewable sources, and battery storage to provide cost-effective, environmentally compliant, and highly reliable energy dispatch strategies. Key Highlights: High-Performance Optimization with Julia & JuMP: - Implemented using JuMP, a powerful algebraic modeling language for optimization. - Solved using HiGHS, an industry-leading solver known for its speed and efficiency in handling large-scale linear programming problems. - Julia’s computational speed and efficient memory handling make this model scalable for real-time market applications. Cost Minimization & Operational Efficiency: - The objective function minimizes total operational costs, balancing generation, start-up, and battery operation expenses for optimal market performance. Renewable Energy Integration & Curtailment Management: - The model maximizes clean energy penetration while effectively managing renewable curtailment to mitigate intermittency. Advanced Battery Storage Dynamics: - Explicit constraints model charging, discharging, and storage efficiency losses, enhancing grid flexibility. Emission Compliance: - Enforces emission cap constraints, ensuring regulatory compliance and supporting sustainability targets. Reliability Through Operational Constraints: - Incorporates demand balance, unit commitment, ramp rate limits, and spinning reserve requirements to maintain grid stability and resilience against unexpected demand fluctuations. Market Advantages: The model leverages mixed integer programming (MIP) for global optimality, ensuring transparent, scalable, and real-time deployable decision-making. Julia + JuMP dramatically improves computational efficiency, making it ideal for real-world energy markets, utility operators, and policymakers seeking cost savings and carbon reductions. Full project access, including source code, CI/CD pipelines, and detailed documentation, is available on my GitHub upon request: https://lnkd.in/eDC7VVHS Looking forward to engaging with industry experts on how this model can be adapted, extended, and applied in real-world energy systems. Let’s push the boundaries of smart, sustainable energy optimization! #EnergyOptimization #JuliaLang #JuMP #CleanEnergy #Sustainability #LinearProgramming #EnergyMarkets #SmartGrid #Innovation

If you work in power systems, Australia is one of the most interesting grids in the world to follow 🇦🇺⚡ It’s where some of the hardest challenges of high inverter‑based penetration are being tackled first. A few years ago, grid‑forming (GFM) batteries in Australia were still pilot projects. Today, the country is setting a global benchmark for how inverter‑based resources can actively stabilize a modern power system. I recently came across two ARENA‑initiated reports by Ekistica. They provide quite insightful perspectives on how this transition has played out in practice.   The first, Lessons Learnt and Future Directions from ARENA’s Grid‑Forming Battery Portfolio (June 2025), examined four pioneering projects on the National Electricity Market: • Hornsdale Power Reserve Expansion • Wallgrove Grid Battery • Broken Hill BESS • Darlington Point BESS   Jointly, above projects demonstrated that grid‑forming battery energy storage systems can deliver synthetic inertia and system strength, even in weak parts of the grid, and can operate through real‑world frequency disturbances. Just as importantly, the report highlights the tougher realities: grid‑connection processes built around synchronous machines, limited transparency in OEM models, and market frameworks that struggled to value services like system strength.   The second, Early Findings from ARENA’s Second Round of Grid-Forming Battery Projects: Update Report (October 2025) shows how quickly things evolved. Subsequent projects increasingly treated grid‑forming capability not as an experiment, but as a default design choice, supported by improving regulatory settings and more standardized technical approaches.   This practical deployment is also being reinforced by deeper system‑level research. The RACE for 2030 project "Understanding power system dynamics with high levels of grid‑forming inverters" focuses on developing an efficient way of modelling the GFM inverters and associated controls. Better models, better tools, critical technical skills and better understanding are essential if these technologies are to scale without compromising system security.   Put together, these efforts help explain why Australia matters to the global industry: ✅ early, real‑world deployment at scale ✅ open discussion of technical and regulatory lessons ✅ coordinated research to close modelling and skills gaps  Australia isn’t just a case study—it’s a preview of what is hopefully coming next in the RoW! Photo source: NS Energy, Liddell Battery Project, Australia   #GridForming #BESS #PowerSystems #EnergyTransition #ARENA #RACEfor2030 #InverterBasedResources

✋ Read the new report by Quantified Carbon for the UNECE, 'Understanding the Full System Costs of the Electricity System' Highlights: ⚡ Cheap electricity isn’t always cheap Energy debates often rely on LCOE, but the report shows this metric hides many real system costs—especially in highly renewable systems. 🧩 Electricity systems are ecosystems Power systems must deliver reliability, resilience, flexibility, and affordability—not just low generation costs. Focusing on single technologies leads to distorted decisions. 🔍 Introducing SCBOE: a system lens The report proposes the System Cost Breakdown of Electricity (SCBOE), which captures all costs, including: • 🏗️ Grid and connection costs • 🔄 Balancing and ancillary services • 🌍 Environmental and social externalities • ⚙️ Flexibility and resilience needs 🌬️ Why variable renewables cost more at scale Wind and solar have low plant-level costs, but integration costs rise sharply due to curtailment, price cannibalization, grid expansion, and stability services. 🍽️ The “dinner plate” model works best Cost-optimal systems combine variable renewables + dispatchable flexibility + firm low-carbon power (like hydro, nuclear, geothermal). Balance lowers total system cost. 🌩️ Resilience matters Extreme weather, cyber risks, fuel security, and energy droughts must be built into planning—not treated as afterthoughts. 📌 Bottom line Decarbonization succeeds when policy moves beyond narrow cost metrics toward holistic, system-level planning. 💬 What should guide future power decisions more: lowest upfront cost—or long-term system resilience? #EnergyTransition #PowerSystems #ElectricityMarkets #GridResilience #Decarbonization #EnergyPolicy #Renewables #SystemCosts

When 47 million people lost power across Spain and Portugal in April, the "blame renewables" narrative emerged almost immediately. Even US Energy Secretary Chris Wright jumped in, declaring it a cautionary tale about "hitching your wagon to the weather." But the official grid operator report tells a very different story — one that offers critical lessons for how we manage high-penetration renewable grids globally. In our latest episode of Open Circuit, we collaborated with Laurent Segalen and Gerard Reid of the Redefining Energy podcast. They joined me, Katherine and Jigar to look at the cause of the outage, why the blame keeps shifting, and the tech/culture change solutions. The cascade began with a 300 MW solar plant sending frequency oscillations through the grid. But this should have been easily manageable. Instead, the conventional generators that were legally obligated to provide voltage stabilization failed to do their jobs. A series of communication, dispatch, and technical errors ensued, triggering a 27-second cascade that darkened an entire peninsula. Three systemic failures converged: 1. Inadequate grid coordination: Spain has installed tens of gigawatts of solar in the past decade with minimal battery storage and weak interconnections to neighboring grids. As Laurent Segalen put it: "The system has become more fragile." 2. Conventional generator failures: The gas plants paid to stabilize the grid didn't fulfill their contractual obligations during the crisis. 3. Outdated grid management: Grid operators are still managing 21st-century technology with 1980s protocols, lacking the real-time data and software integration that modern grids require. In the episode, we highlight some of the critical solutions for grids around the world: 1. Battery storage at scale: You can't have massive solar capacity without adequate storage to match. The UK avoided similar issues because batteries immediately compensated when a 1.4GW interconnector failed. 2. Grid-forming inverters: Solar and wind can provide grid stabilization services, but only if they're equipped with the right technology and allowed to participate. 3. Regional integration: Strong interconnections prevent localized issues from becoming system-wide failures. 4. Cultural shift in grid management: Operators need to embrace data-driven management and treat renewables as infrastructure, not just variable generation. Plus, in the second half of the show: As America leans into its role as a petrostate, will Europe lean into its role as an electrostate? We have a very insightful conversation on the many ways security -- not decarbonization -- is shaping EU investments. While the US can choose fossil fuels, Europe has "no choice but to move towards energy independence, and the only way you can do that is to electrify," Reid explained. This was a really fun episode! Listen: https://bit.ly/4eGWhT0

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are no longer a future concept—they are a critical part of today’s power systems. As renewable energy penetration increases, grids are facing challenges like intermittency, peak demand stress, and voltage instability. This is where smart BESS design becomes essential. Modern BESS design is not just about selecting battery capacity (kWh). It requires a holistic approach that balances: ✅ Power requirements (kW) based on load and grid interaction ✅ Energy capacity (kWh) based on backup duration and cycling needs ✅ C-rate selection to match performance and battery life ✅ PCS (inverter) sizing for both active and reactive power support ✅ Grid services like frequency regulation, voltage control, and power factor correction Beyond design, it’s important to understand the purpose of BESS in today’s world: ✅ Peak shaving → reducing maximum demand and lowering electricity costs ✅ Load shifting → storing energy during low demand and using it during peak hours ✅ Renewable integration → smoothing solar and wind fluctuations ✅ Backup power → ensuring reliability during outages ✅ Frequency regulation → stabilizing grid frequency ✅ Voltage and power factor support → improving power quality ✅ Energy arbitrage → buying low-cost energy and using/selling at higher prices One of the most overlooked aspects is the relationship between battery C-rate and PCS sizing. A high-energy battery with a low C-rate may not meet peak load demands, while an oversized PCS without proper battery capability leads to underutilization. In today’s world, BESS is evolving beyond backup systems into intelligent assets that: ✅ Stabilize grids with fast response times ✅ Enable higher renewable integration ✅ Reduce energy costs through peak shaving and arbitrage ✅ Provide ancillary services like reactive power support Designing a reliable and efficient BESS requires understanding both electrical fundamentals and real-world operating constraints. It’s a blend of engineering precision and system-level thinking. Here are some design calculations. In future, we will study in depth. #BESS #EnergyStorage #BatteryStorage #PowerSystems #RenewableEnergy #SmartGrid #GridStability #PeakShaving #LoadShifting #EnergyManagement #CleanEnergy #SustainableEnergy #PowerEngineering #ElectricalEngineering #EnergyTransition #GridModernization #SolarEnergy #WindEnergy #Decarbonization #FutureEnergy

Symbiotic Data Centers: Pioneering Urban Sustainability Data centers power our digital economy but are often criticized for their high energy use and environmental impact. To address this, we must rethink their role. Imagine data centers embedded in urban ecosystems, actively contributing to sustainability by leveraging circular economy principles and systemic synergies. This is the vision of symbiotic data centers. Circular Economy: A Foundation for Sustainable Data Centers The circular economy redefines how we view waste and resources. For data centers, this means: Reuse and Recycling: Refurbishing servers and recycling rare materials to reduce e-waste. Water Efficiency: Closed-loop cooling systems minimize water usage. Energy Management: Optimizing energy use reduces waste and costs. These strategies drive both sustainability and long-term value. Turning Waste Heat into an Asset Data centers generate vast amounts of waste heat, which is often dissipated without consideration. Yet, this low-grade heat holds immense potential: District Heating: Cities like Stockholm use data center heat to warm buildings. Food Production: Greenhouses and fish farms benefit from low-grade heat. Community Support: Projects like Paris's Olympic Aquatics Center showcase public benefits. Repurposing waste heat transforms it into a community asset. Embedding Data Centers in Precincts Integrating data centers into urban precincts creates symbiotic relationships: Smart Grids: Data centers stabilize grids by balancing energy supply and demand. Co-Location: Partnering with industries like wastewater plants supports resource sharing. Renewable Integration: Using solar or wind power reduces carbon footprints. These synergies position data centers as integral to urban sustainability. Innovative Cooling Solutions Cooling remains energy-intensive, but advancements offer solutions: Liquid Cooling: Direct-to-chip cooling improves efficiency and heat recovery. Wastewater Cooling: Leveraging treated wastewater reduces water use and costs. These innovations are critical for regions with high temperatures or limited water resources. Challenges and the Path Ahead Achieving symbiotic data centers involves challenges: High upfront costs for heat recovery and integration. Technical alignment with urban infrastructure. Policy gaps that hinder collaboration. Overcoming these requires partnerships between operators, planners, and policymakers. Conclusion: Transforming Data Centers Symbiotic data centers redefine sustainability. By integrating into urban ecosystems and embracing circularity, they can reduce waste, support renewable energy, and enhance community resilience. The journey demands innovation, collaboration, and a commitment to a greener digital future. #SustainableDataCenters #CircularEconomy #SmartGrids #WasteHeatRecovery #Sustainability #GreenInfrastructure #EnergyEfficiency #ClimateAction #DigitalTransformation #Symbiotic Image credit: DALL.E

An excellent example of how stacking is shaping today's energy system is the use of a common platform by 🇫🇮 Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid Oyj and distribution system operator Helen Sähköverkko Oy to meet their flexibility needs at the transmission and distribution grid levels, by tapping into electric vehicles, heat pumps and solar energy. This platform is hosted by NODESmarket, which also runs similar local platforms for other system operators in Europe. Flexibility provider Synergi, ''der Name ist Programm'' as the German saying goes, brings together 10,000 Finnish households with EVs, heat pumps and solar, for which the service already provides smart control that reduces costs for the user without any effort. The company offers this solution to various energy suppliers. Everyone wins by joining forces and building on what already exists. Electric vehicles, heat pumps and solar panels get an extra function with smart control, increasing comfort and control for the user while reducing costs. In addition to smart control for better efficiency and optimisation for (spot) prices, the more than 10,000 Finnish households using Synergi's app now also contribute directly to solving bottlenecks in the electricity grid. What can we learn from this? Take advantage of stacking opportunities: as system operators, bundle the use of flexibility (good and much needed TSO-DSO collaborations are already emerging elsewhere). Use platforms (don't reinvent the wheel 👀 🇳🇱 ) that are open to any form of (demand-side) flexibility, especially aggregated small units. For consumer energy devices, the ability to stack optimisation inputs is an interesting way to get even more value out of their devices, contribute to a sustainable, reliable and efficient energy system, and reduce costs. Smart services are evolving from optimising for one input to increasingly stacking markets/services using the same intelligent control of energy devices. Fortunately, fully harnessing the flexibility of the rapidly growing number of consumer energy devices for a more robust, efficient, sustainable and affordable European grid is a key focus of EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). In the European Union, it is primarily up to Member States (and their energy regulators) to remove barriers and open up (local flexibility) markets. The ongoing electrification of households is a great opportunity for synergy!