New Zealand leads the journey to achieving 100% renewable electricity, a global leader in electrification and automation said.
ABB supplies both equipment and expertise for several of New Zealand’s largest energy infrastructure initiatives. This includes electric ferries, charging stations, and automated water monitoring systems.
According to Anders Maltesen, Asia president of ABB, New Zealand ranked among the top five countries for renewable energy. The country achieved 80% renewable power last year despite a shortage of water in its hydro lakes.
Globally, the nation was leading the way.
Maltesen said the challenge for the country was the electricity produced from fossil fuels, which “needs to be decarbonised in one way or another.”
“A lot of it will happen through electrification of processes. But that’s generally quite expensive.”
Furthermore, New Zealand’s shift to sustainable electricity would require upgrading and expanding the grid to access renewable energy sources, Maltesen said.
“Because without having the necessary capacity to transmit power from the South Island to the North Island, you’re missing that opportunity, which is a 3% to 5% reduced cost of transmitting power. And then instead, you have to build additional capacity.”
“There has to be an upgrade of the grid. It doesn’t all have to happen in one time. And then, obviously, when you operate, make it smarter.”
Although hydrogen generation has been promoted as the key to moving away from fossil fuels in recent years, Maltesen said it can be very costly.
“It’s not happening, it’s not scaling, and it’s very expensive at this time.”
“There are a lot of technical challenges if we really want to go 100% hydrogen gas turbine.”
Maltesen also noted that improving speed and accuracy in weather forecasting would enable New Zealand to adopt a five-minute price settlement window for the electricity market.
Reducing the settlement window would promote greater use of renewable energy and necessitate quicker calculations of demand and supply forecasts.
Currently, prices are determined every 30 minutes.