Road-Mapping Grounds for Electricity Transition: Experiences Across the Atlantic and Beyond
Moderator: Dr. Isaac Dyner
As the world accelerates electricity transition, each country must design effective pathways to ensure the process unfolds in an orderly manner. Challenges include gaining acceptance from policymakers and all stakeholders, as concerns persist about technology intermittency, transmission capabilities, and environmental impacts. Society remains anxious about land use, costs, and security of supply—issues that depend on market design, power adequacy, transmission reliability, and a strong emphasis on education. Institutional readiness is still lacking in areas such as market mechanisms, policy frameworks, regulation, competition, and supply security. Research—through roadmaps—must help policymakers understand that the transition requires careful design, leaving minimal room for setbacks. Differences in national contexts—policy perspectives, market structures, energy mix, renewable potential and location, grid development, and societal attitudes—add complexity, along with the need to convince media and the public of the benefits. This is despite the maturity of renewable technologies, which are flexible, cost-effective, and modular—an undeniable advantage. Countries in Europe, the Americas, and Oceania have accumulated over a decade of experience, yet there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While ideas circulate globally, each country faces unique challenges. There is still much to learn, particularly in achieving 100% renewables. Integrating solar and wind farms has progressed relatively well, but phasing out coal, gas, and even nuclear power remains difficult. Hydro, biomass, and geothermal can help, but these resources are not abundant everywhere. Hybrid systems (solar plus batteries) are widely available, yet seasonal variations outside tropical regions make baseload provision challenging. This panel will examine experiences and challenges, aiming to establish roadmaps that incorporate key elements of market design, supply security, and electricity price reductions. We will discuss energy auction designs complemented by capacity mechanisms—what configurations work best? What other essentials are needed? The discussion will be broad and forward-looking, with the goal of inspiring progress toward net-zero targets and 100% renewable energy.
