Profile: SME Interview on Understanding Future-State Renewable Energy

When we say renewable energy sources, we mean mainly freely available primary energy sources such as hydropower, wind, and solar. Those are naturally replenished. So day after day the river flows, sun shines, and the wind blows. At TE, we mainly mean solar and wind when we talk about renewables. 

When we refer to the implementation, we mean the industrial implementation. From my perspective, it simply took a while to get the costs down. So, for instance, initially subsidies were necessary to install and develop scale of solar. In fact, today, the overall cost of electricity production by solar PV is already the lowest, with a more favorable return on investment in well-suited regions. So with a lot of sun.  

On the one hand, renewables needed to become simply financially attractive. The average return on investment of a traditional solar farm is between 10 to 20%. Most solar farms pay off their system within 5 to 10 years, and then half at least 30 years of free electricity after that. On the other hand, people are becoming way more aware of the effects of climate change, and as we most recently also saw off the effects of our dependency on fossil fuels. In the past 50 years, we have been confronted with fivefold increase in weather-related disasters, which are now happening way closer to home and have put an intense focus on finding more sustainable solutions by organizations, governments, communities across the planet. And what I also want to mention is that the most recent Ukraine crisis has the potential to further accelerate Europe's trend toward renewables as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.    

One is the volatility of wind and solar as energy sources. Since the sun is not always shining and the wind not always blowing, during these times, the energy output is less than the installed nameplate power of a wind turbine or a solar farm. And as a result, these plants need a backup power source, such as, for instance, a large scale storage. Or they can also be paired with other energy sources that can fill in during these times. Solar farms, for instance, have a capacity between 10 to 25%. And that means that, depending upon the location, they are producing maximum power more than 10 to 25% of the time during the year. Nuclear power in comparison is at 90%, hence about 3.5 times more reliable than solar. And to give you another example, the largest offshore wind farm in the world at the moment is Hornsea 2 in the North Sea that has an installed power of 1.2 gigawatts. And if we assume a capacity of about 40%, then we can expect it to power about 400,000 homes in the US or 1.1 million homes in the EU.  

With the customizable trunk solution, we could slash the installation cost by up to 40%. And this can be a major deciding factor, whether many of these projects ever become a reality. And with it, we have simplified conventional solar farm architecture by combining the solar strings directly at the trunk connection, and hereby reducing the number of cable runs required. This also allows for the centralization of disconnect boxes, clustering them at the inverter pad, which further improves safety, efficiency, and total cost of ownership of the solar farm. And as a result, our customers have saved millions of dollars in materials, installation, maintenance costs, as well as savings from running more efficient operations. 

Wind turbines have increased in size from about three megawatts in 2010, up to 14 megawatts today, and they are projected to deliver 20 megawatts by 2030. The largest turbine in the world today is the Haliade-X, a 14-megawatt turbine with a capacity factor of 60 to 64%. It can power one UK household for two days in just one rotation. And the trend is clearly towards offshore wind generation because wind speeds offshore tend to be steadier than on land, hence yielding a more reliable source of energy. In the meanwhile, demand for onshore wind has declined as turbines have steadily grown in size, amplifying resistance from the general public, and adding complexity to meeting local regulations. So, for instance, in Germany, turbines must be 10 times their height away from the closest home.  

Getting to your question on the contribution of TE: at TE, we have contributed with the proper connectivity solutions in terms of size, voltage level, and reliability, of course. These turbines and connections need reliable performance while withstanding constant abuse from corrosive saltwater and worsening storms. It's also immensely expensive to fly personnel and equipment out via helicopter for installation. These challenges increase the importance of addressing maintenance needs quickly, reliable, and as infrequently as possible. Also, the more that can be pre-installed, the better. We have developed streamlined yet resilient connection systems with simplified installation to address these challenges and minimize costs. For instance, only one worker is needed to mount our high voltage switchgear connector for offshore turbines. And these efficiencies really help make wind power more competitive from both a cost and reliability standpoint compared to traditional energy sources and incentivize stakeholders to make the transition. All the while, we work constantly to develop solutions that will serve increased power generation capacity and further forms of renewable generation, such as floating wind farms.  

TE has been in the energy business for more than 60 years and has always been working closely with installers, understanding their needs and pain points, total cost of ownership - basically it's in TE's DNA to consistently develop solutions that address those. The Customizable Trunk Solution for solar or the high voltage switchgear connector for offshore wind turbines, both allow for simplified installation and provide significant savings at highest reliability. On top of that, we have a professional training program for installers, globally, we have been training more than 2,500 participants annually on high and medium voltage products. 

Available space for setting up renewables is becoming more and more a challenge. Hence the trend to floating offshore solutions for both wind and solar. These come with new and more demanding challenges, with increased environmental requirements for the connections as well as higher voltages to deal with. I mean, today, we are at 72 kilovolts for high voltage connections, and for the next generation we are talking 132 kilowatts. That's about double. This is exciting for every engineer. Once again, we can be at the forefront of technology with new materials, connector designs, monitoring systems, and with that, contribute to a better, more sustainable world. 

I believe that we can expect more symbiotic relation between capacity and demand. So our energy networks, knowing where, what, and how much energy is available on the one hand and on the other hand, where is what and how much demand? Hence, source and load management systems will work closer together for seamless operation so that the power stays on.  The power grid now must cope with an increasing number of more difficult to predict renewable energy sources. And we talked about this a little bit before. And at the same time, electricity is taking a more central role in fulfilling our everyday needs, including the mobility. Just think of the electric vehicles now, lighting, cooking, heating, and cooling. And with this, I believe that the digital technologies will play an increasingly essential role requiring a higher number of sensors at critical connection points in the power and distribution grid. And this is also why at TE, our connectivity components have already been developed with integrated or retrofit sensor technologies.