The net zero emissions in Canada and around the world by 2050 is a difficult journey but doable. Achieving net zero emissions means our economy either emits no greenhouse gas emissions or offsets its emissions, for example, through actions such as tree planting or employing technologies that can capture carbon before it is released into the air. This is essential to keeping the world safe and livable for the next generations to come. As the unit cost in producing electricity from renewable sources is getting lower as expected and would eventually phase out the electricity production from fossil fuel in the long run. The major shift in the energy mix from fossil fuel to renewable sources is inevitable. The major players of renewable sources would be Hydro, Wind, Solar and then Green Hydrogen (H2). When clean electricity is used to make hydrogen, the hydrogen is called “green hydrogen” because the energy is produced without emitting greenhouse gases. The big provinces such as Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario are leading the path towards to the green energy mix where Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are still working on how to reduce producing electricity from Coal & Coke and Natural Gas and increase producing electricity from Renewable sources. These provinces do capture carbon while burning the fossil fuel and store the liquid CO2 in the deep underground. The modern natural gas generating stations can produce 50% fewer carbon emissions than coal generation and still play an important role in on demand power requirements. The baseload and peak power have to come from reliable sources such as Nuclear and Hydro. The Wind and Solar can provide intermittent power depending on the weather. The natural gas generating stations can therefore respond quickly and provide flexible power to enable the renewable energy fluctuations with the change of sunshine and wind speed.
The green hydrogen as a fuel would help to bridge the gap in the foreseeable future and make progress towards our climate targets with clean air and strong economy. Similar to gasoline, hydrogen is a highly energy-dense, portable way to store power and release it on demand – either to power a vehicle or make electricity. But unlike gasoline, clean hydrogen does not emit any greenhouse gases. The only by-product of combusting hydrogen and oxygen is water. The green hydrogen can supply to the fuel cells stacks of different sizes for heavy-duty trucking, municipal mobility, and heavy industrial consumers, off-grid electricity production etc. The green hydrogen plant will use electricity from renewable sources such as hydro, wind or solar to power the electrolyzer that will break water into the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen.
These diverse sources of the power generation making a need the modernization of our transmission grids more predictable. Typical utility-scale power plants generate alternating current (AC) electricity, and most electrical loads run on AC power. Thus, the majority of transmission lines carrying power around the world are of the AC type. However, there are instances when high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems offer significant benefits over long distance. HVDC is more environmentally friendly and can support the globalization of power grids with asynchronous interconnection.
The lighter and cheaper cables and power towers involved in HVDC transmission systems, as well as the fact that HVDC doesn’t waste as much energy in transmission, the increased efficiency of HVDC over HVAC reduces losses from 5 – 10% in an AC transmission system to around 2 – 3% for the same application in HVDC. HVDC has lower capacitive losses than HVAC, it can travel underground, underwater, and through the air with significantly less losses in energy. This makes it ideal for integration with renewable energy sources, such as wind, hydro and solar. The longer links required for connecting renewable energy sources to cities and distribution networks, mean that high-voltage direct current (HVDC) grid infrastructure will play an increasingly important role. This is to reduce energy losses and reduce our global carbon emissions by implementing more sources of renewable energy.
