Philippe Arsonneau: Schneider’s Grid Modernisation Vision

The energy landscape’s rapidly-evolving nature means grid modernisation has become a critical component in achieving a sustainable future.

Philippe Arsonneau is the Infrastructure Segment President at Schneider Electric. His role involves propelling the energy transition across the Power & Grid, Mobility and Semiconductor sectors. 

Having been with Schneider Electric for more than 30 years — and leading multiple teams across different geographies — Philippe has been instrumental in helping Schneider’s partners and customers decarbonise and electrify amid the energy transition. 

Here, he shares how Schneider is aiding grid modernisation.

How does Schneider support and underpin grid modernisation? 

The whole ecosystem spans from generation right through to becoming the prosumer. When we have solar on our roof, an EV or whatever the case is, we're all part of the energy equation.

A lot of grids were built more than a hundred years ago for another time, another generation. They were fit for purpose. We produced centralised energy, we transmitted it, we distributed it.

Now we have a much more modern grid and increasing demands. Electrification is really at the forefront. It's the cleanest form of decarbonisation that we can have. 

The grids themselves, in this context, are becoming increasingly challenged and complex with distributed energy resources. This we need to be conscious of. The grid is really the central enabler for a decarbonised world and for more electrification.

And we have the advent of AI data centres. We've all got our mobile phones. We're all driving – some of us are driving electric cars — industry is becoming more electrified. This means the grid is becoming more complex to manage.

This is where companies like Schneider Electric play a pivotal role in helping the grid operators modernise their grid. I'm all for building out renewables and building new infrastructure, but I think one of the biggest things for us is driving resiliency, enhancement and flexibility within the current grid system.

At Schneider Electric, we do that by enhancing grid infrastructure, digitising the grid, making the grid much smarter than it was when it was built.

How can digital technologies help overcome the challenges of integrating variable renewable energy sources into existing power grids?

One of the key fundamental things that we need to manage and drive today is visibility within the grid.

Applying digital technologies is the first step for making the grid much smarter and more resilient to natural disasters.

For example, on a hot day in California, everyone turns their air conditioning on. Then, all of a sudden, the power goes off — then we start to have blackouts and the like. Being able to use digital and software applications like DERMS means we are able to deviate power or be predictive in our demand response. This means we’re making traditional infrastructure much smarter as well as building out for the future. 

Everyone talks about AI. It's not just about the boom of data centres and the enormous power it's needed, there's a big connection between the grid and AI when it comes to predictive analytics. 

At Schneider Electric, we have AI-powered tools like EcoStruxure where we can provide data in real time for monitoring, forecasting and obviously grid optimisation.

What specific upgrades or innovations does Schneider Electric recommend to increase network output and efficiency while connecting more renewables to the grid?

DERMS — distributed energy resource management — is a big topic. With solar farms, wind farms, microgrids, there are many applications there. With Schneider, our EcoStruxure DERMS allows for the effective management of all these distributed energy resources while also providing virtual substation technology.
We’re not just building out a concrete substation, we're actually leveraging the technology and software like DERMS to enhance the grid, optimising the management of electricity flow. 

As I said, grid reliability, sustainability and flexibility is very important.

Can you elaborate on how software solutions can help manage the growing presence of distributed energy resources and balance supply and demand in a more flexible grid?

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure is a microgrid advisor — I would call it the secret source of a microgrid where it acts as the brain and really allows that flexibility.

We all know building out renewables is not the issue — it's really integrating those renewables. Leveraging solutions like DERMS will allow us to integrate much faster. We have software applications, dashboards and tool board applications like NetZero dashboard that provide insights to sustainability strategies. 

Everyone is on the sustainability path. It's not just a mission statement or a logo, it's reality. Some of us are much more advanced, some of us have a big machine behind us. Of course, some of us don't. So software applications like our NetZero dashboard within our sustainability division allows us to help empower not only grid operators, but many people providing that data. Data is really the key. But how do we decipher that data? How do we make that data much more meaningful and work for us?

Energy storage is another big thing. I'm a big believer in that renewable resources are only good if you have battery storage. Using the old analogy, the sun doesn't shine when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn't blow when the wind doesn't blow. To really leverage the potential of renewable resources like wind and solar, we need to attach storage to it to give us that flexibility. The next evolution of that is attaching grid-style storage and much more flexibility into the grid to allow the grid to really play its part.

AI will play a role in that, too, automating those connection points and all the software and hardware to really provide the insights we need to have a sustainable grid in a net zero future.

What role do you see energy storage systems playing in creating a more resilient and renewable-ready grid infrastructure?

One important thing is that we need to take grid scale storage to the next level. Fundamentally, we need much more storage. We have the technologies we need to work with partners, we need to work with the system there to really drive collaboration. 

When it comes to attaching BESS and energy storage to the grid there, incentives help, but I think the best way to do it is with industry.

What are the most critical policy changes or regulatory reforms needed to accelerate the transformation of energy systems and achieve 2030 renewable energy targets?

In some geographies, policy is not as far advanced or mature as we see in others. Ultimately, we need the policies to be much smarter to support this modern grid. Without going into the macro politics of it, policies need to evolve. This is where we need to educate governments, policy makers, industry participants on really the adoption of policy to support smart grids, support digitisation of the grid and to enable those technologies to be implemented. It takes a village.

We need to keep on fostering collaboration and need industry to participate to really adopt the technologies that we have today. There are many technologies we can apply today. I encourage our partners, industries and our customers to adopt proven technology if we have it. Let's make sure that we can help reform and educate along the way so we can speed up grid modernisation and further growth. The IEA says we had US$150tn to spend over the next 20 years on grid modernisation — and that's not going to happen by itself. It will happen with regulatory support, government support, industry support as we try to further decarbonise our economies and the grid.

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