Nobel prize winner, Steven Chu, speaking at a forum held in Beijing. August 12, 2018. /CGTN Photo
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can further enhance the productivity of China’s energy sector, a world leader in long-distance power transmission and distribution, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate, said at a forum in Beijing on Sunday.
He said the country is doing a remarkable job in the field of energy storage. Pump storage capacity, an affordable way to pump water at a certain height to generate power, is targeted at 40 gigawatts in the coming years in China.
The storage helps in removing the intermittent power supply barrier from solar and wind farms.
“A mix of hydropower and renewables like solar and wind is a very big deal for power supply. Europe is also planning to link its hydrologic dam in Norway and Sweden with wind farms in northern Europe,” said Chu, the Nobel Prize winner for Physics in 1997 for his work on cooling and trapping atoms with laser light.
“The power mix transmitted in China through ultra-high voltage (UHV) one million volt AC and 1.1 million DC transmission line running through 3200 km registers a transmission loss of only five percent,” he said.
However, “China does throw away a lot of renewable energy,” he said in a speech at the World Forum on Scientific and Technological Innovation at Beijing Conference Center attended by 20 Nobel laureates.
The UK is facing a similar situation. In a bid to control wastage of wind power, “machine learning or artificial intelligence experts are hired by the British National Grid for efficient use of renewable energy and to control its wastage of wind power. China can learn from this initiative to further improve its power sector,” he said.
In recent years, renewable energy storage and its supply to the national grid have become a considerable challenge. At present, chemical batteries, thermal and pumped hydro storage are the only viable options available. Chu pointed out Australia recently installed the world’s largest utility-scale chemical battery with a capacity of 100 MW.
Compared to China’s pumped storage, battery storage capacity remains minuscule. Moreover, “cost of hydropower pump storage is just one-tenth compared to that of battery storage,” Chu explained.
In the last one decade, renewable energy is getting cheaper, and energy policies are focusing on harnessing it on a large scale to curb pollution and limit emissions.
“Science and technology have made it viable for renewable energy to be affordable with one-kilowatt per hour (kWh) of this energy produced at below two cents including profit,” he said.
Apart from cost, renewable energy is being favored by many countries as it has negligible emissions. Power generation from fossil fuels is one of the major emitters of carbon dioxide contributing to global warming leading to rising temperature and a dramatic rise in sea level, environmentalists claim.
According to the United Nations, more than 40 percent of the global population lives within 100 km of the coast exposing them to vulnerabilities caused by rising sea water.
“By 2070-2080, emissions should have to be negative from all carbon-emitting sectors like transport and energy to meet the UN goal to limit temperature rise below two degree Celsius,” Chu added.
