Clean flexibility is the brain managing the clean power system

The report argues that 'clean flexibility' acts as the 'brain' of a clean power system, balancing supply and demand in real time to ensure electricity is clean every hour. It categorizes nine flexibility tools into four functional areas: Store (pumped hydro, batteries, long-duration energy storage, and green hydrogen), Shift (peak shaving and smart electrification), Share (grids and interconnectors), and Supply (improving fossil plant flexibility and smarter wind/solar operation). The document emphasizes that while some tools are basic and cheap, others are more complex and costly, and the optimal mix depends on the specific power system. It concludes by urging COP29 to expand its focus beyond storage, grids, and hydrogen to include the full portfolio of flexibility solutions.

• Clean flexibility is described as the 'brain' of the power system, managing the balance of supply and demand through four primary tasks: shift, store, share, and supply.
• The 'Store' category includes four tools: pumped hydro and enhanced hydropower, batteries, long-duration energy storage (LDES), and green hydrogen. Pumped hydro and batteries are seen as essential first steps, while LDES and green hydrogen address longer-term needs like 'dunkelflaute' periods.
• Green hydrogen is identified as an inefficient electricity storage solution due to high energy losses, where more than two-thirds of the initial electricity is lost during conversion.
• Demand-side flexibility tools include 'peak shaving' (one-off payments for reducing consumption) and 'smart electrification' (using EVs and heat pumps to match consumption with renewable abundance).
• Grids and interconnectors enable both structural sharing (moving power from high-potential areas to those in need) and temporal sharing (exploiting weather variations across regions).
• Optimizing supply involves improving the 'downward flexibility' of fossil plants so they can switch off more easily and implementing 'smarter' wind and solar operations, which may include strategic curtailment to stabilize the grid.
• The report critiques the COP29 agenda for focusing only on a global storage target, a grid expansion target, and green hydrogen, thereby omitting demand-shifting and supply-flexibility tools.

APA

Rangelova, K., Petrovich, B., Jones, D., & Bruce-Lockhart, C. (2024). Clean flexibility is the brain managing the clean power system. Ember. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2024/10/Clean-flexibility-is-the-brain-managing-the-clean-power-system.pdf

Chicago

Rangelova, Kostantsa, Beatrice Petrovich, Dave Jones, and Chelsea Bruce-Lockhart. Clean flexibility is the brain managing the clean power system. Ember, 2024. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2024/10/Clean-flexibility-is-the-brain-managing-the-clean-power-system.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Rangelova |first1=Kostantsa |last2=Petrovich |first2=Beatrice |last3=Jones |first3=Dave |last4=Bruce-Lockhart |first4=Chelsea |title=Clean flexibility is the brain managing the clean power system |publisher=Ember |date=30 October 2024 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2024/10/Clean-flexibility-is-the-brain-managing-the-clean-power-system.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rangelova2024clean, author = {Rangelova, Kostantsa and Petrovich, Beatrice and Jones, Dave and Bruce-Lockhart, Chelsea}, title = {{Clean flexibility is the brain managing the clean power system}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2024}, month = oct, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2024/10/Clean-flexibility-is-the-brain-managing-the-clean-power-system.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }