Growing the grid

Long after most cities fall silent, turbines like this one keep turning to keep the power flowing. It is an enormous task: cities consume around 75 per cent of global energy and produce roughly 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Powering them sustainably is one of the climate transition’s defining challenges.

Thankfully, renewables are on the rise and now make up about a third of the global electricity mix, with wind and solar together contributing over 17 per cent of global power generation.

But wind and sun do not run on a city's schedule. Turbines like the one pictured generate power intermittently, depending on weather, while urban demand runs around the clock. Solving this mismatch means combining multiple renewable sources to offset each other's gaps, alongside investment in smart grids that can balance variable generation against real-time demand, and storage technology to bank surplus power for when it's needed most.

As climate change strains the power grids even further – each 1°C of warming raises peak electricity demand by close to 4 per cent – the race now is to ensure the technology keeps pace with demand. Only then will our vast urban centres, and the way we power them, have a chance of being part of the solution, not the problem.

This award-winning photograph was shortlisted in the ‘Planet’ category of the COP28 Photography Competition, a collaboration between The Climate Tribe and the Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA). The Climate Tribe has partnered with HIPA to leverage the power of photography to inspire global awareness of sustainability and advance climate action.