Climate Summit Confronts Grid Upgrades Needed for Renewables
WHO:
Fast Company - Selwin Hart is the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on climate action.
Fast Company - Jan Rosenow is a professor of energy and climate policy at Oxford University.
Fast Company - James Abraham works with the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water.
Fast Company - Gahee Han works with the Seoul-based nonprofit Solutions for Our Climate.
Fast Company - Abdul Razib Dawood is executive director of the ASEAN Center for Energy.
Fast Company - Turkey and Australia are co-hosting the U.N. climate talks.
ABC News Business - The article identifies outdated power grids as a key issue at climate talks.
WHAT:
Fast Company - The U.N. climate talks in Antalya address grid upgrades as a major obstacle to expanding renewable energy.
Fast Company - Hart said, “There needs to be a massive, massive, massive scaling up of investments into grids” to meet climate, energy and development goals.
Fast Company - The U.N. launched the Global Grids Accelerator to speed international funding for electricity infrastructure in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Fast Company - International Energy Agency figures show annual investment in electricity generation has risen almost 70% since 2015, reaching $1 trillion a year; annual grid spending has increased at less than half that pace.
Fast Company - The IEA says annual grid investment needs to rise about 50% from $400 billion per year to meet electricity demand through 2030.
Fast Company - China curtailed 360 terawatt-hours of wind and solar electricity in the first half of 2026, close to the United Kingdom’s annual electricity demand, according to Global Energy Monitor and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
Fast Company - India curtailed 11 terawatt-hours of solar generation over 15 months spanning 2025 and 2026—enough to power about 10 million homes—according to Ember.
Fast Company - Grid upgrades could improve efficiency, move excess renewable electricity to higher-demand areas and enable electricity exchanges with households that have solar panels or batteries.
Fast Company - ASEAN is promoting an interconnected regional power grid to make electricity trading easier and help protect against future energy shocks.
WHERE:
Fast Company - The talks are hosted in Antalya, a Turkish resort city.
Fast Company - The Global Grids Accelerator focuses on infrastructure funding in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Fast Company - China and India face renewable-energy curtailment linked to insufficient grid capacity.
WHY:
Fast Company - Older grids designed for centralized power plants often cannot absorb or transmit electricity from growing solar and wind generation.
Fast Company - Grid bottlenecks can force renewable generators to curtail output while fossil-fuel plants continue supplying electricity, increasing emissions.
Fast Company - The article says grid concerns have gained urgency as countries seek energy security following the Iran war.
HOW:
Fast Company - Grid capacity constraints can lead operators to limit solar and wind output, a process called curtailment.
Fast Company - Rosenow said, “Power grids have not been readied enough for the scaleup of renewable electricity generation” and called the grid “a real bottleneck.”
Fast Company - Han said that without Asian grid upgrades, the region would have to rely on conventional gas or coal plants.
(UPDATED November 9, 2026 17:03 UTC)
Outdated power grids are a major obstacle to expanding renewable energy, climate talks in Antalya emphasize. A new accelerator aims to speed grid funding across Africa and Southeast Asia. China and India are curtailing renewable electricity as grids struggle to deliver it.