Sector Coupling and Storage are Crucial for Green Energy

Earlier in the book, we took a closer look at electricity generation and the importance of electricity grids for the energy transition. In the general discourse on the energy transition, the term decarbonisation is often used. This term describes the shift away from carbon as an energy source. However, some approaches continue to use carbon (e. g. biomass or synthetic fuels). The carbon must come from renewable sources and non-fossil sources in the corresponding processes regarding climate change. This is expressed by the term defossilisation (cf. FfE, 2021). In this book, however, we use the more common term decarbonisation. We need to decarbonise other (energy) sectors besides the electrical system to achieve the climate targets. This means that we stop the material and energetic use of fossil energy sources across sectors and replace them with renewable alternatives. Current scenarios for the decarbonisation of energy supply see increasing electrification as precisely this alternative to previous fossil energy sources such as natural gas and oil. The smart (electricity) grid is thus only one crucial part of the entire smart energy system, which in addition to the electricity sector, also includes the mobility, heating and cooling or water supply sectors, among others. An example of such a regional smart energy system with different sectors is shown in Figure 1.1.