GRID INFRA CAN’T COPE WITH RE BOOM–BMI RESEARCH

Increasing investments in renewable energy technologies will dampen grid infrastructure development in the next decade, thus straining global energy transition efforts, an international think tank said.

BMI, a unit of the Fitch Group, said in a report that current renewable energy projects would see “little relief” from congested grid conditions despite growing investments.

“The grid has emerged as a bottleneck to the global energy transition, with investments in nonhydropower renewable generation capacity outpacing grid infrastructure spending,” BMI explained.

BMI also noted that investment in renewables had been outpacing grid spending since 2018 by an average of $200 billion, citing data from the International Energy Agency.

Spending gap reached $328 billion in 2023.

“We expect the gap in investment to remain as strengthening global renewable deployment targets and adopted climate policies will continue to drive renewables investment,” BMI added.

In the Philippines, both the government and developers point to poor transmission grid development as among the reasons why there is a slowdown in the entry of renewables.

As a well-developed power grid is needed to ensure that the power network is stable even as new clean energy technologies emerge, the Developers of Renewable Energy for Advancement Inc. (Dream) previously stressed that this posed a challenge for developers.

“Generators want to build [power plants] in some areas, only to find out that there’s no transmission capacity,” Dream president Jose Layug Jr. had said.