Net Zero Requires Thinking About Power Grids “In a Completely Different Fashion,” Says BloombergNEF’s Helen Kou: BNEF Interview – FESCH.TV

Net Zero Requires Thinking About Power Grids “In a Completely Different Fashion,” Says BloombergNEF’s Helen Kou: BNEF Interview & FESCH.TV:

Is the US power grid green enough to ensure that clean-tech use is actually carbon-free? “That [question] keeps me up at night,” says Helen Kou, the head of BloombergNEF’s US power team.

According to BNEF’s New Energy Outlook, clean power production in the US needs to increase 15-fold for the country to reach net zero by 2050, Kou explained at the BNEF Summit San Francisco on January 31. Moreover, “one gigawatt of coal is not equal to one gigawatt of solar,” Kou said, referring to the intermittency of renewables. As a result, power markets must be designed “in a completely different fashion to match the technologies that are likely going to decarbonize the power system.”

But that doesn’t mean we should simply give up, Kou affirmed. “There’s a lot of different things you can do,” she said. “All of which, I think, policymakers need to consider.

BNEF Summit San Francisco, January 30-31, 2024