Green energy push ‘the only positive from Covid’

During the summer in Michigan, when temperatures can surpass 32C and humidity is high, energy demand often doubles as households crank up their air conditioning.

But in the early days of the pandemic last year, the state’s largest energy provider found many households were worried about how they would meet the rising costs over the summer. Unemployment was mounting and those who were forced to work from home saw their electricity usage growing fast.

Headquartered in the city of Jackson, Consumers Energy responded by giving away 50,000 “smart” thermostats to help customers statewide save money during the crisis. However, the devices have also had a longer-lasting effect: reducing electricity demand during the peak hours of 2pm-7pm, when the carbon intensity of the grid can be higher.

This smart thermostat scheme, launched in May 2020 with Google Nest and technology company Uplight, is one example of how some cities and areas have benefited from the acceleration of clean energy projects during the pandemic. Companies and policymakers have sought to use the recovery from the crisis to speed the shift from fossil fuels and rebuild their economies with “green” infrastructure programmes.

Consumers Energy’s electricity customers who accepted the thermostat — which is controllable with a mobile phone and offers a clearer way of tracking usage — were also signed up to a programme designed to shift households’ energy usage outside peak hours. In these peak times, electricity is more expensive and, to meet demand, utilities often rely on fossil fuel plants that can be powered up quickly.

Now, households are alerted a day ahead when the utility expects demand to be high — described to customers as an “energy savings event” — and their homes are automatically cooled in advance. Smart thermostats are then automatically adjusted by a few degrees during the crunch period to reduce demand on the system, although customers can still change settings manually if they are uncomfortable.

There are now some 30,000 households signed up to the programme, known in the energy industry as “demand response”. Utility companies around the world view this approach as critical to replacing polluting fossil fuel plants that are fired up during peak hours. It can also reduce the amount of clean energy infrastructure that might be needed in future, by turning whole areas of homes and businesses into “virtual power plants” that can respond to the needs of the grid.

‘Demand response’ is critical to replacing fossil fuel plants fired up during peak hours

Other companies, including the UK’s Centrica, have also been looking at how to turn areas into virtual power plants using batteries installed in homes that can store electricity when it is cheap and discharge it in peak hours.

Demand reduction is one of the strategies in Consumers Energy’s “clean energy plan” which aims to meet its customers’ needs with 90 per cent clean energy resources by 2040. It has set a target to go coal-free by 2025.

Before the pandemic, it could be a “challenging conversation” to encourage customers to use less energy during peak hours, says Brian Rich, senior vice-president of Consumers Energy’s parent company, CMS Energy. But the economic fallout of the crisis meant many began to see the financial benefits.

Rich says the company “started talking about energy efficiency and demand response through the pandemic as a cost play and bill savings play for customers”.

Luis Buil, director of global smart solutions at Spanish utility Iberdrola, says that, since the pandemic, more towns and cities in Europe have been considering how to introduce clean energy projects. This is a response to people’s desire to live in cleaner, greener places — and to take advantage of the new €750bn EU coronavirus recovery fund, known formally as Next Generation EU, designed to help states undertake green and digital transformations.

Buil says a number of Spanish municipalities have been asking how to replicate measures that are being introduced in Zorrotzaurre, an artificial island in the northern city of Bilbao once dominated by heavy industry. It is being turned into a residential and business district accessible only to zero-emissions vehicles and featuring solar rooftop installations, geothermal energy, and centralised district heat generation to cut emissions.

“Thanks to the Next Generation fund we are working with a lot of municipalities in order to build similar projects, in order to be ready to ask for the funds when it is open,” says Buil. He adds that many other municipalities are keen to introduce community or collective solar schemes in residential buildings, given the large proportion of Spaniards who live in flats. “Probably the only positive thing about Covid is we really realised we can live in cities without smog, without noise,” he says.

The redevelopment of Zorrotzaurre is taking place in several phases and has been under way for more than a decade. For Asier Abaunza, head of strategic projects for the city of Bilbao, though, the pandemic showed its importance.

A 2.5km waterfront on one river bank of Zorrotzaurre was completed just a month before Covid-19 hit. “So, when the pandemic came, we had a new green area for the people of the city to walk safely and in a very attractive space. It was very, very well evaluated by the people,” says Abaunza.