Flexible electricity generation, grid exchange and storage for the transition to a 100% renewable energy system in Europe

By Michael Child, Claudia Kemfert, D. Bogdanov, Christian Breyer. Renewable Energy, 2019

503 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Two transition pathways towards a 100% renewable energy (RE) power sector by 2050 are simulated for Europe using the LUT Energy System Transition model. The first is a Regions scenario, whereby regions are modelled independently, and the second is an Area scenario, which has transmission interconnections between regions. Modelling is performed in hourly resolution for 5-year time intervals, from 2015 to 2050, and considers current capacities and ages of power plants, as well as projected increases in future electricity demands. Results of the optimisation suggest that the levelised cost of electricity could fall from the current 69 €/MWh to 56 €/MWh in the Regions scenario and 51 €/MWh in the Area scenario through the adoption of low cost, flexible RE generation and energy storage. Further savings can result from increasing transmission interconnections by a factor of approximately four. This suggests that there is merit in further development of a European Energy Union, one that provides clear governance at a European level, but allows for development that is appropriate for regional contexts. This is the essence of a SuperSmart approach. A 100% RE energy system for Europe is economically competitive, technologically feasible, and consistent with targets of the Paris Agreement.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/65ca382e2c005d16c56994efbecd5fe0385a82c4

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Citations in the corpus

Storage requirements in a 100% renewable electricity system: extreme events and inter-annual variability (2022, background): “…period Maximum storage discharge per average loada Bussar et al (2014) Europe 3 years 15 d Schill and Zerrahn (2018) Germany 1 year 12 d Child et al (2019) Europe 1 year 32 d Tröndle et al (2020) Europe 1 year 12 d Neumann and Brown (2021) Europe 1 year 23 d a Including hydro…”
On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research (2022, background): “that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [”
Energy transition scenarios: What policies, societal attitudes, and technology developments will realize the EU Green Deal? (2022, background): “In Child et al. [34]; the authors study the Pathways to assess the feasibility of a 100% RES-based electricity generation mix by 2050 in 20 European countries and aggregated regions.”
Tightening EU ETS targets in line with the European Green Deal: Impacts on the decarbonization of the EU power sector (2021, background): “Except for [8,11], these studies all focus only on analysing a single year (usually 2050) under greenfield assumptions, not on the transformation pathway from today’s system to that target point.”