Guterres Urges Governments to Address Power Grid Bottlenecks
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MENAFNSpeaking Thursday at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, southern Türkiye, Guterres highlighted the growing obstacles facing the global transition toward cleaner energy, stressing that outdated electricity networks are restricting progress despite increasing investments in renewable sources.
“If renewables are the heart of the energy transition, grids are its arteries. And today, those arteries are clogged,” Guterres told a high-level gathering focused on the Global Grids Accelerator, pointing out that approximately 3,000 gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage projects are waiting for grid connections.
He explained that although investment in clean energy has reached twice the amount directed toward fossil fuels, the construction of electricity transmission infrastructure remains considerably slower. Developing a new transmission line can require up to 15 years, while establishing a solar power facility may take just one year.
Guterres emphasized that achieving global electrification targets will require the construction or modernization of more than 80 million kilometers (50 million miles) of electricity lines by 2040. He also called for networks to become “smarter and more resilient” while being “linking them across borders” to improve energy security and reduce electricity costs.
The UN chief highlighted the Global Grids Accelerator, introduced in September, as an important platform for addressing these challenges by bringing together UN organizations, national governments, multilateral development banks and private-sector investors to support electricity network modernization.
He also warned that geopolitical conflicts occurring far from major energy-consuming markets can significantly increase household electricity costs in countries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. By contrast, renewable energy has emerged as the “cheapest, fastest, and most secure” option for generating additional electricity in nearly every part of the world.
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