Kristian Ruby, Secretar General al Eurelectric
Utilities need to increase organizational preparedness by improving situational awareness of the threat landscape they face today, cooperating with local authorities to do so and exercising to ensure effective response when crisis strikes, says Kristian Ruby, Secretary General of Eurelectric. ”We should be clear here that electrification is the cost-effective and efficient solution we need in Europe for more competitive industry. It allows us to take back control of our energy system, end reliance on imports and reduce exposure to volatile commodities”, Kristian Ruby adds. ”What is key for Romania and the wider Southeastern Europe region is flexibility. One crucial element here is the interconnection of the region with the rest of the EU. Here, we need more interconnection capacity to turn the internal energy market into a genuine Energy Union,” Kristian Ruby tells Energynomics.
Eurelectric said that Europe needs an updated security of supply strategy. What are the main pillars of this strategy? What are the critical points that we are facing now, in energy supply, and how can we fix our markets deficits of power and gas?
Indeed, Europe needs to redefine the way it looks at energy security. We face new and evolving external challenges like hybrid threats (both physical and cyber) as well as chokepoints in our supply chains and the unanswered challenge of climate change. We also face challenges within the energy system such as increasing variable generation, increased digitalization that increases the cyberattack surface area and decarbonization which is good for climate but means we are phasing out traditional sources of dispatchable power.
Against this backdrop we need to start thinking more about preparedness and resilience. Utilities need to increase organizational preparedness by improving situational awareness of the threat landscape they face today, cooperating with local authorities to do so and exercising to ensure effective response when crisis strikes. But beyond that, we need to invest in resilience. Harder assets, as well as stockpiles of critical, difficult to procure equipment and cybersecure systems. We also need to invest in flexible generation sources and our grids to increase and make the most use of its capacity. Finally, we need to ensure the market is sending the right signals – ones that reflect the real-time system needs, ones that value th3e system services that exist and ones that incentivise consumers to adapt their consumption on the demand side.
In short, we need to plan more holistically, invest more thoroughly, and enable operational efficiency.
Industry is suffering a major hit with Green Deal being too fast-paced. How can we better adapt the Green Deal to make/keep also the EU industry competitive?
We should be clear here that electrification is the cost-effective and efficient solution we need in Europe for more competitive industry. It allows us to take back control of our energy system, end reliance on imports and reduce exposure to volatile commodities.
To take advantage of the benefits of electrification, we need to push win-win solutions between power companies and our industry that pass on the benefit of cheap electricity generation from clean energy and incentivize flexible consumption. Supporting electrification, meanwhile, by reducing taxes and levies on the electricity bill and supporting lead markets for things like green steel will give the demand certainty needed to push investment in both the sector and the energy providers for that sector.
How can a country like Romania ensure both its security of supply, while also being competitive and use gas as a transitional element, and nuclear, when the term of giving up on gas is approaching fast, and Romania still has to open a lot of new cogeneration plants and gas production facilities?
What is key for Romania and the wider Southeastern Europe region is flexibility. One crucial element here is the interconnection of the region with the rest of the EU. Here, we need more interconnection capacity to turn the internal energy market into a genuine Energy Union. Meanwhile, flexible capacity needs to be boosted too. Negative prices in the region often occur as well due to the inability to give cheap abundant renewable energy a shelf life – this is a market case for battery storage to accelerate. And of course we cannot turn our back on base load – nuclear, and for the foreseeable future. Across Europe, more and more countries are turning to capacity remuneration mechanisms to ensure that we can maintain system adequacy as ever more variable RES generation capacity is built. Still, we need to be clear about the external dependency we have for gas vs clean homegrown electricity – gas is simply a less competitive energy carrier in Europe than elsewhere in the world – electrification of industry, transport and buildings enables us to wean off this dependency and put more of the cheaper generation sources to work.
