Spotlight

Detailed look at a specific topic or area of interest

• Offshore Wind Farms and Transmission in Europe: Transition to sustainability

  July 14, 2016
  The European Union (EU) has been at the forefront of international efforts to achieve the targets set in the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) global climate deal.

• Integrating Renewables: IT applications for improving grid reliability [free access]

  June 10, 2016
  A renewable energy revolution is being witnessed across the world. In 2014, 28 per cent of Germany's total energy demand was RE-based while in 2013, 42 per cent of energy demand in Spain was renewable-based. As per International Energy Agency's Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2015, renewable energy will represent the largest single source of electricity growth over the next five years.

• US' Grid Development: FERC analyses impact of policy changes on investment

  May 10, 2016
  With over two decades of regulatory and structural changes, the United States (US) today has one of most diverse and liberalised electricity industries in the world. There are over 3,200 electric utilities operating in the generation and supply businesses.

• Changing Structure of US Power Market: Stable returns drive M&A deals

  April 6, 2016
  In recent years, the US power market has witnessed a significant rise in mega transactions to help companies reduce business risk and create stable returns.

• US' Clean Power Plan: Supreme Court stays the proposal for now [free access]

  March 10, 2016
  The much hyped and ambitious Clean Power Plan (CPP) announced by United States (US) President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in August 2015 has been put on hold by a Supreme Court ruling in February 2016.

• SEA Grid Integration Ambitions: Requires strong commitment from all states

  February 3, 2016
  The ASEAN region (constituting 10 Southeast Asian countries) accounts for around 5.7 per cent of the world's total energy production.

• Transmission Developments in 2015: Round up on regulatory and industry activities

  January 11, 2016
  In 2015, there has been some progress on the regulatory front in many countries in streamlining the processes for approval of the electricity transmission projects.

• ENTSO-E's Investment Plans: Focus on energy markets and RES integration

  December 8, 2015
  European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) recently released the six Regional Investment Plans (RegIP2015) along with a list of project candidates for the Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) 2016.

• US Electric Transmission Congestion Study 2012: To ease transmission congestion

  November 10, 2015
  The US is expanding and strengthening the country's transmission infrastructure in order to deal with the changing energy landscape due to growing attention on climate change and increasing dependence on domestic energy sources.

• Progress on Grid-Scale Energy Storage: US leads the way; Europe, Asia close behind

  October 6, 2015
  The global grid-scale energy storage market is expanding fast with the rise in the use of renewable energy sources. Energy storage systems play crucial role in providing a cushion to stablise the intermittency associated with such resources.

• Transmission Sector Structural Reform Trends: Europe and Americas take the lead [free access]

  September 10, 2015
  Traditionally, the power sector has been operated by state-owned vertically integrated monopolies. However, over the last decade or so, such vertically integrated utilities have not been able to cope with the high levels of investments in electric power systems associated with the rising demand for electricity.

• Submarine Cable Industry: Offshore and cross-border projects drive the market

  August 10, 2015
  The global undersea cable market is primarily driven by capital expenditures on offshore wind installations, cross-border links and remote area connections.

• European Projects of Common Interest: Financial support from CEF funding

  July 13, 2015
  The European Commission (EC) has been making a concerted effort to establish an integrated common energy market. To this end, policy-level support is being extended to projects that are crucial for developing a modern transmission infrastructure.

• Asia Energy Corridors: Creating electricity highways for enhancing energy security [free access]

  June 10, 2015
  Energy demand in Asia is expected to increase by 2.4 per cent annually over the next 20 years. Within the region, the highest growth in energy demand is expected to take place in East Asia (4.8 per cent annually) and South Asia (3.5 per cent annually).

• New Technologies: For transmission line inspection and maintenance

  May 7, 2015
  As per Global Transmission Research estimates, the global high voltage transmission line network comprised over 4,075,000 km of 110 kV and above lines at the end of 2014.

• Emerging Options: New conductor and insulator technologies [free access]

  April 10, 2015
  Economies across the world are continuously working towards increasing their installed power generation capacity and expanding their transmission networks to meet the ever-growing demand for power.

• Inching towards European Energy Union: European Commission adopts strategy

  March 10, 2015
  Europe has been rigorously working towards establishing an integrated common energy market, particularly since the adoption of the Third Internal Energy Market Package in 2009.

• Advances in Direct Current Technology: Moving from HV to UHV

  February 10, 2015
  Although direct current (DC) technology has been in existence since the 1870s, it was made commercially available only in the 1950s.

• Transmission Developments in 2014: Snapshot of major events across the globe

  January 8, 2015
  Encouraging competition by announcing several regulatory initiatives and improving the various approval processes were the main focus of the regulators of North and Latin American countries to attract higher investments in the power transmission segment.

• Progress on FERC's Order 1000: Majority of utilities still await final compliance approval [free access]

  December 10, 2014
  Since the announcement of Order 1000 in July 2011, a total of 51 transmission system operators/developers have submitted their compliance filings with the United States' FERC.