Background
The World Bank, financed by DG Energy, is supporting the Government of Poland to position for a transition to a low-carbon economy.
This is taking place while:
- prices of different energy commodities are changing rapidly,
- the security of supply of imported energy is very uncertain, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
- costs of renewable energy technologies are changing very rapidly,
- financing availability and terms are becoming increasingly favorable for renewables and storage.
At the same time, all of these factors are changing much faster than countries have been accustomed to in the past.
In this context, there are two main pathways that the countries can follow:
- Persist with the existing set of technologies.
- Rethink future energy mix and engage with a more dynamic planning to follow a new pathway.
It is true that the energy shortages, especially in the European continent, resulted in many governments thinking about the short-term more than the medium/long-term. However, the countries that can do both might become the new energy and industrial development champions. Countries need to decide how fast to move out of coal, how fast to transition through natural gas (if at all), how quickly to adopt variable renewables such as solar and wind and when to invest in different types of flexibility resources on the network, including energy storage to enable high penetration levels of variable renewables.
Based on the above, the World Bank is now pursuing further brainstorming on the concept of repowering the energy sector and how to best replace "baseload" coal. During this brainstorming period, a critical set of stakeholders to consult are the private operators and regulatory authorities operating and governing the power sector and the stakeholders impacted by the coal phase-out.
Workshop Objective
This workshop aims to determine whether the use of storage to help renewables in replacing coal, deserves consideration and whether further in-depth quantified cost-benefit analysis of the concept is merited. Based on feedback received, a sub-objective is to discuss the broad outline of financing needs, should the concept find merit with the stakeholders.
Join live at
https://vimeo.com/event/2592700/f30a3064dc