Is air conditioning a threat to Switzerland’s power grid?

The elevated temperatures this summer season prompted many people to crank up the air-con. In Switzerland, the power used for cooling is approaching that for heating. What does that imply for energy grids?

Official figures from the Swiss climate workplace are placing: temperatures this summer season have been 1.6°C above the nationwide common for 1991–2020, and there was an intense warmth wave with peaks reaching or exceeding the 2003 data in a number of cantons.

Planet-wide, this was the second hottest summer season (after 2023) since data started. And because the temperature rises, the necessity for air conditioning is surging. Based on Switzerland’s Federal Workplace of Power, cooling programs now account for practically 11% of the nation’s electrical energy use—not removed from the 14% determine for heating.

Air con saves lives, nevertheless it additionally contributes to urban heat islands (thus aggravating global warming), provides to the strain on power plants and will increase the load on energy grids. Will Switzerland’s grid have the ability to deal with the extra demand? We spoke with Prof. Mario Paolone from EPFL’s Distributed Electrical Methods Laboratory to seek out out.

The heightened use of air-con implies that peak load on our grid will quickly happen in the summertime quite than the winter. Is that trigger for concern?

So far as the grid is anxious, managing demand for cooling programs is not that totally different from managing demand for heating programs. However the problem is that the necessity for electrical energy is rising general, not simply due to air-con, since a rising variety of processes are going electrical.

That is true for companies in addition to shoppers. Warmth pumps and electrical automobiles are extra environment friendly than gas-fired boilers and combustion engines, for instance. It is this electrification of processes that is driving the change.

How?

The extra demand is impacting native energy grids, which have been already congested. Present power lines and transformers weren’t sized for the type of load they’re now experiencing. Energy vegetation are additionally beneath higher strain as they have to provide the extra electrical energy and maintain sufficient reserves to accommodate the often-unpredictable spikes in demand.

If we wish to fill the hole with renewable energyan estimated 40 GW of further solar energy can be wanted to fulfill Switzerland’s demand for electrical energy, together with electrical energy for heating programs, cooling programs and electrical automobiles. However that may make native power grids much more congested and improve the required reserves.

Can a few of the strain be mitigated by the truth that demand for air-con happens when photo voltaic power is at its peak?

That is positively a constructive facet of air-con: its use is of course synchronized with durations of intense daylight. If Switzerland shifts extra of its power combine to solar powerthat may alleviate a few of the grid issues I discussed.

Property homeowners will wish to set up photo voltaic panels similtaneously air conditioners as a way to decrease their working prices. That may also cut back the necessity for power storage, for the reason that energy will be consumed proper because it’s produced.

Provided that Switzerland has an influence surplus in the summertime, might we meet the extra demand with photo voltaic power and subsequently ‘break even?’

That is what lots of people suppose as a result of most of us purpose when it comes to web power. However energy demand and provide programs do not work on an mixture degree. Sufficient electrical energy have to be out there to fulfill demand instantaneously or else we’ll expertise energy outages.

That is why grid operators have to make use of both a requirement administration system or an power storage system to deal with swings in provide and demand. For now, grid operators handle demand with what are generally known as major, secondary and tertiary reserves.

Might the reply be to decentralize extra of Switzerland’s energy community?

Completely. The intention of the Federal Act on a Safe Electrical energy Provide (Mantelerlass) that was adopted on 9 June is to create “energy communities” by which buildings share the facility they generate with one another as wanted, doubtlessly assembly all of their very own demand.

Expertise already exists to deal with points with synchronizing provide and demand whereas assembly the grid constraints I described earlier. We’ll undoubtedly see power communities being created throughout Switzerland to provide and handle their very own electrical energy—for not simply air-con but in addition heating and electric vehicles—and ease congestion on the nationwide grid.

Extra broadly, nevertheless, we’ll must handle demand for energy typically extra successfully if we wish to mitigate the impression on our grid and power reserves.

There’s additionally the difficulty of how prices are distributed amongst energy producers, energy shoppers and energy grid operators.

We now have the expertise to calculate the load issue of a grid primarily based on energy circulate. This may be finished with locational marginal pricing, as an illustration. We’re engaged on a challenge with the Lausanne energy utility to make use of this type of pricing to maximise the advantages for all members in a given market whereas additionally enhancing the efficiency of the facility grid. The thought is to seek out the easiest way to cut back the funding and working prices for a whole group.

Now we have the solutions in concept, however we’re lacking the precise authorized framework to implement them. A challenge with the Lausanne energy utility is meant to check one choice beneath real-world situations.