Behind the necessary rise in renewable energies, the challenge of their integration into the electricity grid occupied the experts of the Forum on Energy Transition in North and West Africa.

Rabat, Morocco, April 23, 2024 – According to Wärtsilä Energy, As a leading power plant builder and energy systems integrator in Africa, multiple constraints must be taken into account to increase the share of renewables while ensuring more reliable electricity production.

To solve this complex equation, the issues of making the energy system more flexible, anticipating technological developments, and financing issues must be addressed effectively.. So many determining issues that occupied the discussions during the Energy Transition Forum which brought together in Rabat the major public and private players in the energy sector of North and West Africa.

A headache for network managers

“The region’s power grids are under great stress, with permanent constraints leading to chronic instability,” says Marc Thiriet, Africa Energy Business Director at Wärtsilä. “At the same time, they need to be expanded at a rapid pace to meet the expected increase in electricity demand, which is increasingly coming from renewable energy.”

The networks, which already had to adapt to highly fluctuating demand downstream, will also have to manage an increased volume of intermittent solar and wind electricity production upstream, which will greatly complicate the management work."

This is why it is necessary to make electricity production more flexible. This flexibility comes primarily from so-called "balancing" technologies, i.e. battery storage on the one hand, and flexible engine power plants on the other.

Unlike storage, balancing motor technology is relatively unknown to the general public, and yet these power plants have already been deployed for many years in almost all African countries (for example, Tan-Tan, a 116MW motor-powered power plant in Morocco).

This technology is popular because it has many advantages, particularly in terms of operational efficiency, which make it ideal for dealing with the specific conditions of the African energy sector, such as heat, humidity, or even the instability of fuel supplies.

Balancing motor plants in particular are able to ramp up and down very quickly to meet multiple daily fluctuations in electricity demand and renewable generation. This is a major advantage for facilitating the integration of large-scale renewables into the grid.

The key role of green fuels in the energy transition

According to Marc Thiriet, "Today's energy choices are a commitment for decades. This is why electrification strategies must be considered over the very long term based on in-depth analyses, which must also fully integrate the major technological developments that are emerging, such as the emergence of green fuels. ».

Indeed, if balancing power plants equipped with "Dual-Fuel" engines have long had the capacity to switch from one fuel to another (natural gas, oil or biomethane) without even having to be stopped, it is the current emergence of new green fuels, hydrogen in the first place, which will make it possible to reach the final stage of the decarbonization of electricity networks.

“Flexible power plants will need to be able to use all available green fuels, with hydrogen being the most likely solution in the long term. Biofuels such as biomethane already exist locally and are ready to be used for controllable electricity production,” says Martial Claudepierre, Senior Green Fuels Expert at Wärtsilä Energy.

"One of the objectives will be, in the event of excess production of renewable electricity, to use it to produce green hydrogen which will be stored to be used subsequently to produce green electricity during intermittency of renewable energies or during high electricity prices."

Currently, Wärtsilä’s balancing engines can operate using a fuel blend containing up to 25% hydrogen. It is expected that within a few years, “multi-fuel” engines will be able to operate exclusively on all green fuels, such as ammonia or methanol, enabling a transition to 100% renewable energy with zero carbon impact and at a competitive cost.

Engine power plants, because of their flexibility and fuel versatility, therefore provide an excellent foundation on which to build a renewable future.

« Wärtsilä's goal by 2030 is to deliver a complete portfolio of power plants that will be ready to operate entirely on carbon-free fuels. ", said Kenneth Engblom, Vice President of Wärtsilä Energy.

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