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Electricity Grid Needs a Massive Upgrade (Special Episode)

October 10, 2024 • Serhat Aydogdu • Season 2 • Episode 6

Join me for an extra special episode on The Curious Learners! It was created using Google's NotebookLM AI tool and my blog post on The Curious Learners (link here)!

Today, we're diving into a critical but often overlooked aspect of our path to net zero: the electricity grid. We’ve all heard that electrification is key to decarbonizing industries like transportation and buildings, but what often goes unmentioned is that none of this can happen without a robust transmission network.

In today’s episode, we’ll explore why the transmission grid is the ultimate bottleneck in accelerating renewable energy deployment. As electricity demand surges—driven by everything from electric vehicles to AI-hungry data centers—we face a grid that’s outdated and stretched to its limits. The stakes are high, with $21 trillion needed by 2050 to overhaul the global grid, and a staggering number of renewable projects stuck in the queue, waiting to be connected.

But there's hope. We’ll discuss innovative solutions like advanced conductors, reconductoring, and Grid Enhancing Technologies that could drastically improve the capacity and efficiency of our transmission networks. These technologies are essential if we’re going to speed up the shift to renewables and hit our decarbonization targets.

So, stay tuned as we unpack the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in ensuring that the grid is up to the task of powering the future!

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Serhat Aydogdu

Host