Flexicurity: Some Thoughts About a Different Smart Grid of the Future

As the “smart grid” paradigm becomes more prevalent, fundamental techno-economic challenges prominently arise. The variability of renewables energy sources (RES) requires conventional generators to remain active and operate inefficiently. The grid’s inertia grows weaker, jeopardizing its stability. Ever more frequent network-related issues threaten the grid’s security. The industry experiences extensive degrees of price cannibalization, resulting in negative prices and RES down-regulating their production to avoid severe penalties. To this day, no work has presented a critical industrial view of the issues and each asset’s presence within the grid-market setting. This letter showcases the main industrial criticisms of electricity markets and investigates the “flexicurity” potential of energy assets. We ponder how flexibility and security could be grouped into a unified product, and discuss a shift towards a flexicurity-based market. Considering the desired state of the 2050 European grid, we offer some thoughts on possible asset integration routes.