Sungrow Discusses Renewable Energy Innovations and Best Practices to Achieve Global Carbon Neutrality at COP29 By Investing.com

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — As COP29 kicked off under the theme “In Solidarity for a Green World“, the event brought together global leaders, policymakers, and industry stakeholders from nearly 200 nations to advance climate action and sustainable development. Thompson Meng, Vice President of Sungrow PV & Storage Business Group, participated in a roundtable discussion on Driving Global Energy Transformation Through Effective Renewable Energy Industry Cooperation. He shared insights into key industry trends, and underlined Sungrow’s commitment to achieving a zero-carbon world through renewable energy innovation.

Tackling the Energy Transition Challenges

In 2020, just 1.7% of the world’s electricity was produced by solar and wind. Last year, solar and wind produced 13.4% of the world’s electricity — an all-time high. Solar and wind added more new energy to the global mix than any other source.[1]

At COP29, Meng outlined a powerful vision for the renewables’ role as core energy resources. However, high levels of renewable energy penetration and the widespread power electronics usage pose challenges to grid stability and resilience. Furthermore, the increase in electric vehicle (EV) adoption, while a positive step towards reducing emissions, adds a level of demand-side fluctuation that current grids are not fully equipped to manage.

Meng emphasized that building a renewable-centered power system is essential for carbon neutrality. To ensure grid stability and resilience, the renewable energy systems must be equipped with the ability to provide inertia support, as well as frequency and voltage regulation. Consequently, grid-forming technologies are attracting growing attention within the industry, especially the solar and energy storage grid forming technologies.

Meng exampled an incident occurred on Christmas Eve 2023, when a high-voltage transmission line between the UK and France suddenly tripped, causing the UK grid to instantly lose 1 GW of power and leading to a frequency drop from 50 Hz to 49.3 Hz. At that time, wind power accounted for over 50% of the energy generation, leading to insufficient grid inertia support and exacerbating the rapid frequency drop.

In this incident, Sungrow’s multiple grid-scale energy storage systems with grid-forming technologies responded within seconds, helping restore grid stability and preventing an extensive blackout. By participating in the frequency response market and responding dynamically to…