Renewable energy has become a crucial component of the global energy transition. LCOE has been instrumental in assessing the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies, but it fails to capture the full picture of costs associated with their integration into the grid.

The electrical grid is a marvel of engineering that delivers electricity to our homes and businesses, but it requires a delicate balancing act to maintain a consistent supply of electricity to end consumers.

Increasing renewable energy generation does not mean lower prices for the end consumer, despite there being zero fuel-costs. Why is this the case and what needs to happen to change this?

Coal is political and environmentally untenable. Nuclear is politically unpalatable in many places, unaffordable, and following Russia’s attack on the Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, an unacceptable security risk. The inflexibility of nuclear power station output also makes nuclear difficult to integrate with the variable demand of electric vehicles. I worry that many countries will sacrifice their climate goals to achieve security through a system that combines electrification of transport and coal-fired power. We do not have to do this.

Electrification with renewables will be the primary mode of the energy transition, and its weaknesses are causing the transition to stall. It’s time to discover dynamic harmonisation, the means by which we can optimally integrate multiple modes of energy and the work that it powers.

This is the third in a series of reports on understanding the energy transition. Previous reports have looked at the roles of oil and hydrogen. This one looks at the role of the electricity grid and why our conception of value in the electricity system is holding back the energy transition.