ENERGY TRANSITION: FROM GENERATION TO MANAGEMENT, THE GRID AT THE CENTER OF INNOVATION
The energy transition is at the center of the technological and industrial debate, also in light of the ambitious climate and energy targets set by the European Union.
When it comes to the energy transition, however, attention inevitably tends to focus above all on energy generation and, therefore, on the sources: how much energy comes from renewable sources, how much room should be reserved for hydroelectric or nuclear power and, in general, how to progressively reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
But generation is only one part of the transformation under way. Producing growing quantities of energy from low-emission sources does not necessarily mean being able to use it where and when it is needed.
The challenge for the future, therefore, is not limited to merely increasing the amount of energy produced from sources alternative to traditional ones, which nevertheless remains a primary objective, but lies in actually being able to transport, distribute, convert, store and make such energy available where and when it is required.
This aspect becomes particularly relevant with the growing spread of renewable sources, characterized by variable generation profiles and heavily dependent on non-dispatchable factors, first and foremost weather conditions. Geographical variability is added to temporal variability: the areas most favorable to generation may be located far from the main centers of consumption.
The energy transition, therefore, concerns not only how energy is produced, but increasingly also how it is distributed and managed. Transmission and distribution grids, storage systems, interconnections and digital monitoring and control technologies thus become central elements of a power system called upon to integrate growing quantities of energy coming from distributed sources characterized by different levels of dispatchability.
This is a transition destined to become increasingly relevant. According to the Electricity 2026 report of the International Energy Agency (IEA), global demand for electricity is expected to grow by an average of 3.6% per year between 2026 and 2030, driven by the growing consumption from industry, electric vehicles, air-conditioning systems and data centers, a pace approximately 50% higher than the average of the last decade.
At the same time, the structure of generation is changing. Also according to the IEA, the combined share of solar and wind in global electricity generation is expected to rise from the current 17% to 27% by 2030, while renewables and nuclear power, considered together, are expected to account for approximately half of global electricity generation.
The power system will therefore be subject, at the same time, to pressures on two fronts: a higher and more complex demand and a supply made up of an increasingly diversified mix of resources. In this context, it is precisely in the development of the grids of the future that a crucial game risks being played.
The grids currently available were developed around an essentially centralized traditional model, in which energy was produced mainly in large generation centers and from there transported to end users. Today, this infrastructure must integrate much more heterogeneous sources and plants, distributed generation, storage systems, electric vehicles and new large consumers, such as the new data centers. Energy flows are therefore becoming increasingly variable and bidirectional; the grid is required not only to transport energy, but also to coordinate generation sources, storage systems and consumption with different operating characteristics. The ability to integrate these resources effectively is an essential condition for the increase in generation capacity to be translated into energy that is actually available to the system.
The figures already show the scale of the problem. The IEA estimates that, worldwide, over 2,500 GW of projects relating to renewable energy, large electrical loads and storage systems are stuck in grid connection waiting lists. At the same time, investment in infrastructure has not grown at the same pace as investment in generation: according to the IEA, meeting expected demand will be necessary to increase current annual investment in grids by approximately 50% by 2030. The urgency appears even more evident when one considers the gap between the time needed to plan and build new grids and that required for generation projects or data centers.
The response, however, cannot consist merely of building new grids, but rather in adopting a new concept of grid to be applied to both new and existing ones. The grid must transform itself from a passive infrastructure into a “smart grid,” capable of responding to the needs for temporal and spatial flexibility that the new energy landscape already demands and will demand even more in the future.
It is precisely on flexibility that the report of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Flexibility for a Secure and Affordable Power Sector Transformation, is focused. According to IRENA, a flexible power system must be capable of reacting in an economically efficient manner to variations, both foreseen and unforeseen, in demand and supply, keeping them constantly in balance. In the scenario of progressive decarbonisation of the energy system (Decarbonised Energy Scenario, DES) considered by IRENA, the global need for daily flexibility could reach approximately three times its 2019 level by 2030. By 2050, it could rise to approximately ten times on a daily scale and approximately six times on a weekly and monthly scale
The response, however, does not lie in a single technology. Batteries, long-duration storage, interconnections and demand management meet different needs and must operate in a complementary manner. As IRENA points out, in most cases no single solution is sufficient to meet all the flexibility needs of the system.
In this context, it is evident that a true energy transition requires not only more renewable capacity, but also power systems that can adapt continuously to variations in generation and demand, making use of the resources and technologies currently available while continuing to develop solutions to increase flexibility.
The growing need for flexibility thus leads to reconsider the very concept of the energy mix as well. What matters is not only how much energy comes from each source, but also what operational characteristics the various resources present and how they can be coordinated. The energy mix thus ceases to be a simple percentage snapshot of the sources and becomes a problem of system management.
From this perspective, the relationship between nuclear power and renewable sources can also be viewed in a different light: not necessarily as a comparison between alternative technologies, but, in certain configurations, as a possible integration of resources with different and, in a certain sense, complementary operating profiles. In this regard, the International Atomic Energy Agency speaksof nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems: configurations in which nuclear and renewable generation are coordinated to supply the grid and, in some cases, to provide energy for other applications, such as the production of hydrogen, district heating or desalination.
The perspective therefore becomes that of a “managed” energy mix, in which sources, storage and consumption are coordinated according to the needs of the system. This requires not only increasing the physical capacity of the grid but also developing a new concept of smart grid that can measure, forecast and intervene.
The recent IEA report, The State of Energy Innovation 2026, devotes an entire chapter to technologies for grid resilience and structures its analysis around four main areas: real-time stability and power quality; system adequacy and flexibility; physical resilience; grid governance, interoperability and cybersecurity. In each of them, the challenge concerns not only the development of new technologies, but also their integration within increasingly complex and digitalized infrastructure.
The growing digitalization also makes interoperability and cybersecurity an integral part of energy resilience. Sensors, measuring devices, inverters, communication systems, control platforms and advanced algorithms will have to exchange increasing amount of data in order to monitor and manage the distribution of energy in real time. However, greater connectivity also expands the surface potentially exposed to vulnerabilities and cyberattacks. Part of the challenge, therefore, will be to make the grid at the same time smarter, interoperable and secure.
In such a complex and multifaceted context, it is worth emphasizing that a patent is not only a tool for protecting the result of research, but also a valuable window into the directions in which innovation is moving. Patent information makes it possible, in fact, to identify emerging technologies, geographical specializations and new competitive balances before the relevant solutions necessarily achieve large-scale commercial diffusion.
The snapshot provided in 2024 by the European Patent Office and the International Energy Agency already showed this transformation clearly. It highlighted that, over a period of approximately two decades, patent activity concerning technologies for electricity grids had grown to about seven times its 2005 level. The report already highlighted how patent growth had particularly affected technologies relating to so-called “smart grids”, showing a progressive shift of innovation towards control, automation and digitalization of the grid.
The most recent data confirm that energy remains a particularly dynamic field for innovation. In the report The State of Energy Innovation 2026, the IEA notes that approximately one patent in ten relates to the energy sector. Within this landscape, storage carries particular weight: in 2023 energy storage accounted for 40% of patent activity in the energy sector and, according to the preliminary data of the IEA, this share increased further in 2024 and 2025.
These data do not mean, of course, that the number of patents coincides with the technological maturity or with the commercial success of a solution. They indicate, however, where a significant part of the inventive effort is being concentrated.
The energy transition thus appears to be entering a new phase. Innovating no longer means only developing new methods of generation but also making the management of the energy already available more efficient, coordinating sources, storage, grids and consumption.
The challenge of the coming years will therefore be twofold: to continue expanding low-emission generation and, at the same time, to develop the physical and digital infrastructures needed to integrate it. The growth of patent activity in smart grids, storage systems, and digital technologies suggests that this shift is already under way.
From generation to management: the grid, and the technologies needed to make it flexible, intelligent and secure, is increasingly where a decisive part of the energy innovation of the future will take place.
