The cheaper, the more the electric grid collapses worldwide

In 1812, a German named Frederick Winsor founded the Light and Coke Company in London. His proposal was to supply gas to multiple homes centrally, instead that each one had to buy and burn their own coal or their own firewood. Thus, public services were born, which today face its greatest transformation in two centuries By effect of renewables.

The electricity grid According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), today there are 80 million kilometers of electrical networks in the world. By 2040, 50 million additional kilometers will be needed, in addition to the urgent need to modernize another 30 million kilometers of the current network.

The challenge is not only quantity: it is not enough to multiply the electric laying. Wind energy, and especially solar energy, have introduced the need to digitize all infrastructure, Insert control systems and improve your flexibility to handle the intermittent nature of renewables.

The paradox of solar energy. The more accessible the photovoltaic panels become, the more users choose to partially abandon the electricity network. This increases the cost for those who stay, and puts in check the stability of the system, pending a deep modernization.

In rich and sunny regions Like California either Australiaself -consumption has been about to collapse the network in days of abundant solar generation. But you don’t have to go to the most developed places in the world to find these types of problems. A report in The Economist Review three unsuspected cases:

• Pakistan, the third largest importer of Chinese solar panels (according to data from 2023), is seeing how companies, farmers and large consumers install photovoltaic systems to self -abuse and stop paying very expensive electrical invoices. Still dependent on old coal plants, the price of electricity in Pakistan is very high, so users with resources have preferred to invest in solar energy
• South Africa lives another variant of this paradox. Before the mass cuts of the state company Eskom (which are called ‘Load Shedding’), many users install solar panels and batteries to protect themselves from interruptions. The South African municipalities that buy the energy at Eskom and then resell them have to pay increasing invoices to the company and, in turn, charge less to those who migrate to self -consumption. This has generated indebtedness with ESKOM of around 1.2% of the country’s GDP. Solar adoption relieves the dependence of the network, but in turn it is a threat to the income that maintains the infrastructure
• In Lebanon, the state company only provides electricity a couple of hours a day since 2019. As a direct consequence of this, the photovoltaic facilities on the roofs have multiplied, from 100 to 1,300 megawatts in just three years. This situation, despite partially solving the shortage, is resulting in a fish that bites the tail due to the lack of stability and investments in the network

An open gap. As private solar facilities proliferate, fixed network costs (lines, substations …) fall on a smaller user base connected. Those who run out of resources to put panels, generally the poorest, have to pay even higher rates To cover all system expenses, which normally seeks profitability.

The numbers in Europe. Europe is at the head of the world in emission and electrification objectives, but this has important economic implications. According to a Bruegel reportthey will need between 65,000 and 100,000 million euros per year to modernize and expand the European electrical infrastructure, especially in distribution networks.

At the same time, the European Union promotes solar self -consumption and does not always establish sustainable tarification mechanisms for the network. If many homes are drastically or reduced their consumption of the electricity grid, the user base on which the cost of investment in infrastructure is reduced, the fixed term of the invoice is increased and duttering more consumers, who invest in more solar panels.

Cross -border connections. Solar energy itself does not cause instant blackouts, but unbalanced the financial and operational structure of the electricity grid, which has fixed maintenance costs. And he does it for several reasons: the decreasing base of users, the mismatches of supply and demand due to the intermission of renewables and the use of the network as a minimum cost support.

In addition to batteries and Pumping plants to stabilize the networkinternational projects such as the hypothetical are needed Transatlantic cable between America and Europe To share renewable surpluses between continents and soften demand peaks, but their development is complex, controversial and quite expensive.

Image | US Department of Energy

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