E-REDES promoted, on April 22nd, in partnership with the Ordem dos Engenheiros, the webinar "Distributed Generation: Challenges and Opportunities for the Distribution Network". The digital event, broadcast live, was attended by about 800 people from various entities related to the energy sector.
As the Distribution Network Operator, E-REDES has a central role in this process of energy transition as a market facilitator, both with the entities that regulate the activity, as well as the promoters of new resources, designers, contractors and technicians responsible. In this sense, it has been investing, in a determined way, in the construction and operation of smart grids, through the installation of Smart Metering Equipment, sensing and digitalization, in order to integrate an increasing number of new resources, continuing to ensure the security of supply and compliance with all the essential technical conditions for all customers connected to the network to operate and benefit from excellent indicators of quality of service.
The new role of the consumer, the integration of distributed generation, self-consumption, the conditions for connection to the distribution system, and efficient management of the distribution grid were the topics addressed during the conference by various experts and academics.
In 2020, about 70,000 generation facilities were connected to the distribution grid, which represents a significant evolution over the last decade. At the end of 2010 there were only about 9 thousand connections.
In terms of self-consumption, the growth has also been significant, with the connection of about 5 thousand installations per year between 2016 and 2018 and the subsequent increase to 8 thousand installations in 2019. In 2020 this number doubled to 16,000 and in 2021 25,000 new connections are expected.
E-REDES addresses these challenges in a constructive and facilitative way to this transformation, stressing the importance of ensuring the correct and essential investments for the introduction of distributed generation with maximum efficiency and effectiveness for the entire national electricity system.
