OIES Podcast – Flexibility Case Studies for China’s Clean Energy Transition

Power system flexibility has emerged as a central challenge of decarbonizing the electric power industry worldwide. In China, new coal-fired generation is still being added to meet rising peak loads, and newly-constructed coal plants are required to operate flexibly, but the system still features a relatively low degree of flexibility. In this podcast Anders Hove, Dimitra Apostolopoulou and David Robinson discuss three case studies of the European power sector with potential value for the Chinese energy transition. The case studies were selected at a workshop with Chinese experts, and the analysis was published in a recent OIES publication, ‘Flexibility Case Studies for the Clean Energy Transition: Suggestions for China from European Experience’.  Anders, Dimitra and David cover developments in transmission and interconnection, the Nordic ancillary services markets, and demand-side flexibility – specifically looking at the case of Octopus and Kraken in the UK. Although European power markets are clearly a work in progress, the three case studies showcase different aspects of flexibility in Europe and their relevance to China. They showcase how various flexibility measures improve the utilization of existing assets (in the case of transmission), boost investment efficiency (in the case of relative technology neutrality of the Nordic ancillary services markets), and even lead to technology innovation (in the case of demand-side flexibility measures).

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