Online Workshop on Identifying Challenges for Achieving 100% Renewable Power Systems by Mid-century

Background

The workshop on ‘Identifying challenges for achieving 100% renewable power systems by mid-century’ was part of the experience-sharing programme on innovative solutions for very high shares of renewable power by mid-century that is taking place throughout 2019, supported by the government of Sweden and in collaboration with the government of Uruguay.

The workshop has been held online by the IRENA Innovation and Technology Center (IITC), ahead of the workshop on ‘Innovative solutions for achieving 100% renewable power systems by mid-century’, which took place as part of the regional IRENA Innovation day in Montevideo, Uruguay (17^th July 2019).

The focus of this online workshop was on countries who have pledged very high (above 70-80%, and in some cases 100%) renewable power targets by mid-century, and that accepted to participate in the experience-sharing programme on innovative solutions for very high shares of renewable power by mid-century throughout 2019.

Based on the outcome of this preliminary online workshop among country representatives, the subsequent (online and in-person) workshops will explore the most relevant disruptive innovations which enable the rapid uptake of a high share of renewables in power systems. Insights gained will greatly assist participating countries in driving their energy-system transformations towards very-high or 100% renewable power systems in the coming decades.

Objective

The objective of this online workshop was to connect country representatives and foster international exchange of their national objectives in terms of renewable power in the coming decades. In this context, country representatives were given the opportunity to share and discuss current and/or foreseen challenges regarding the adoption of technology-driven innovative solutions for the accelerated deployment of very high shares of renewable power by mid-century.

Target audience

This online workshop targeted mid-level officials, as well as experts who have a role in advising officials from countries that have similar policy ambitions in terms of decarbonising the power system in the next two or three decades. Representatives from the following countries have been invited to attend the workshop, as these countries have policy targets to achieve between 80%-100% renewable power by 2030, 2040 or 2050, in addition to Uruguay, given it is a frontrunner in the operation of a power system with very high shares of renewable power with 98% of its power generated in 2017 from renewable energy sources: Costa Rica, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay.

Outcome

Discussions provided an opportunity to evaluate barriers and missing elements required to scale-up deployment of technologies, while also looking at the strengths of the participating countries to fully harness opportunities arising from the renewable energy transformation. Gathering such relevant information and insights are valuable for IRENA and will be used when designing tools and activities to help deliver countries’ objectives.

All participating countries provided thorough an overview on the present configuration of their power systems, the past and current actions taken to enable the penetration of higher shares of renewables as well as foreseen challenges. On the one hand, there is a challenge in increasing the share of installed variable renewable capacity to reach a 100% renewable powered system, which calls for more flexible power systems, for which there is a wide variety of available technology-driven innovations (beyond innovations in power generation technologies), as well as electricity market improvements. On the other hand, there are examples of (near) 100% renewable power systems (e.g. Uruguay and Costa Rica), showing that it is feasible to reach this goal, by operating variable renewable energy sources with a large hydro-base.

However, curtailment and making use of the surplus electricity is another key challenge that some countries are already facing, and others can expect to face it in the future. To overcome this challenge, electrification and sector coupling strategies can play an important role (e.g. heating in buildings, steel industry, transport and agriculture). Interest in renewable hydrogen was also expressed by all participants but for different reasons and with different applications, ranging from seasonal storage to avoiding renewable curtailment to decarbonizing other end-use sectors. Interactions between participants also highlighted the need to adopt a forward-thinking approach and to “think even bigger”, i.e. to think about what kind of world or society we want to live in by 2050.

A systemic approach was considered throughout the presentations of the participating countries. Most of the innovations discussed referred to enabling technologies, i.e. innovations that play a key role in facilitating the integration of variable renewable energy in the power system but innovations in business models were underlined as well, which highlight that IRENA’s recently published Innovation landscape for a renewable-powered future report is relevant and timely. Innovations for generation technologies were mentioned as well, such as hybridization of power plants (i.e. combing wind, solar power plants and/or batteries). The slides used during the online workshop can be accessed here. The minutes of the online workshop can be accessed here.

As part of the experience-sharing programme on innovative solutions for very high shares of renewable power by mid-century, a subsequent in-person workshop on “Innovative solutions for 100% renewable power systems by mid-century” took place on 17 July 2019 in Montevideo, Uruguay, as part of the IRENA Innovation Day. More information and outcomes of the workshop can be found here. 

Agenda