Europe Today
Euronews' flagship morning TV show with the news and insights that drive Europe, live from Brussels every morning at 08.00. Also available as a newsletter and podcast.
The Ring
The Ring is Euronews’ weekly political showdown, where Europe’s toughest debates meet their boldest voices. In each episode, two political heavyweights from across the EU face off to propose a diversity of opinions and spark conversations around the most important issues of EU affairs and the wider European political life.
No Comment
No agenda, no argument, no bias, No Comment. Get the story without commentary.
My Wildest Prediction
Dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries
The Big Question
Deep dive conversations with business leaders
Euronews Tech Talks
Euronews Tech Talks goes beyond discussions to explore the impact of new technologies on our lives. With explanations, engaging Q&As, and lively conversations, the podcast provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and society.
The Food Detectives
Europe's best food experts are joining forces to crack down on fraud. Euronews is following them in this special series: The Food Detectives
Water Matters
Europe's water is under increasing pressure. Pollution, droughts, floods are taking their toll on our drinking water, lakes, rivers and coastlines. Join us on a journey around Europe to see why protecting ecosystems matters, how our wastewater can be better managed, and to discover some of the best water solutions. Video reports, an animated explainer series and live debate – find out why Water Matters, from Euronews.
Climate Now
We give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source, analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing. We meet the experts on the front line of climate change who explore new strategies to mitigate and adapt.
Europe Today
Euronews' flagship morning TV show with the news and insights that drive Europe, live from Brussels every morning at 08.00. Also available as a newsletter and podcast.
The Ring
The Ring is Euronews’ weekly political showdown, where Europe’s toughest debates meet their boldest voices. In each episode, two political heavyweights from across the EU face off to propose a diversity of opinions and spark conversations around the most important issues of EU affairs and the wider European political life.
No Comment
No agenda, no argument, no bias, No Comment. Get the story without commentary.
My Wildest Prediction
Dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries
The Big Question
Deep dive conversations with business leaders
Euronews Tech Talks
Euronews Tech Talks goes beyond discussions to explore the impact of new technologies on our lives. With explanations, engaging Q&As, and lively conversations, the podcast provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and society.
The Food Detectives
Europe's best food experts are joining forces to crack down on fraud. Euronews is following them in this special series: The Food Detectives
Water Matters
Europe's water is under increasing pressure. Pollution, droughts, floods are taking their toll on our drinking water, lakes, rivers and coastlines. Join us on a journey around Europe to see why protecting ecosystems matters, how our wastewater can be better managed, and to discover some of the best water solutions. Video reports, an animated explainer series and live debate – find out why Water Matters, from Euronews.
Climate Now
We give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source, analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing. We meet the experts on the front line of climate change who explore new strategies to mitigate and adapt.
Europe’s ‘outdated’ energy grid is struggling to keep up with the renewables boom – but experts say an “immediate, zero-intervention” solution is waiting to be unlocked.
Previous reports by energy think tank Ember warned that more than 120GW of anticipated renewable projects are currently at risk due to bottlenecks and “insufficient grid capacity”.
To put this into perspective, a power plant with a capacity of 1GW could power approximately 876,000 households for one year if they consume the annual average of 10,000 kWh of electricity.
Existing solar and wind farms are also being constrained by the continent’s energy grid, which was originally built around centralised coal plants.
This, combined with the inflexibility of wind and solar – which relies on weather conditions for generation as opposed to actual demand – means that huge amounts of clean energy is being wasted every year.
While battery storage and long-term investment in the energy grid are often touted as the only real solutions to tackle this problem, new Ember analysis found that Europe could add 25GW of wind and solar across seven EU countries without building extra grid capacity through ‘hybridisation’.
Hybridisation combines technologies like wind, solar and storage behind a single grid connection. Think of it like the three sources sharing the same ‘plug’ into the electricity grid.
Ember says that in Europe, hydropower plants are “particularly well-suited” for hybridisation because much of their grid capacity goes unused during the day.
This is because hydropower plants act like on-demand batteries which can be ramped-up when electricity consumption increases (which is typically in the early morning and early evening when people are at home) or run at low output in off-peak hours.
“By adding wind or solar at the same connection point as a hydropower plant, developers can get online faster and operators can use grid infrastructure more efficiently – on average doubling utilisation – while staying within export limits,” says Elisabeth Cremona, energy infrastructures lead at Ember.
The report found that across Austria, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain (the EU’s major hydropower markets) hybridisation could integrate 18 per cent of the new renewables expected by 2030 without requiring additional grid capacity.
Across the seven markets Ember studied, only Portugal and Spain have specific rules for hybrid projects. The other countries lack “clear regulatory frameworks,” according to the report.
The experts are therefore calling for national legislation, along with faster prioritisation of hybrid projects, to remove barriers to renewable deployment and make better use of existing infrastructure.
“Political ambitions mean nothing if clean electrons are stranded in connection queues,” Cremona adds. “For countries facing gridlock, hybridisation offers an immediate, zero-intervention solution.”


Browse today's tags

source