Synergies of sector coupling and transmission reinforcement in a cost-optimised, highly renewable European energy system

By Tom Brown, David P. Schlachtberger, Alexander Kies, S. Schramm, Martin Greiner. Energy, 2018

682 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract There are two competing concepts in the literature for the integration of high shares of renewable energy: the coupling of electricity to other energy sectors, such as transport and heating, and the reinforcement of continent-wide transmission networks. In this paper both cross-sector and cross-border integration are considered in the model PyPSA-Eur-Sec-30, the first open, spatially-resolved, temporally-resolved and sector-coupled energy model of Europe. Using a simplified network with one node per country, the cost-optimal system is calculated for a 95% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared to 1990, incorporating electricity, transport and heat demand. Flexibility from battery electric vehicles (BEV), power-to-gas units (P2G) and long-term thermal energy storage (LTES) make a significant contribution to the smoothing of variability from wind and solar and to the reduction of total system costs. The cost-minimising integration of BEV pairs well with the daily variations of solar power, while P2G and LTES balance the synoptic and seasonal variations of demand and renewables. In all scenarios, an expansion of cross-border transmission reduces system costs, but the more tightly the energy sectors are coupled, the weaker the benefit of transmission reinforcement becomes.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c39aec4cc860cba09cf1f6ae204f77a978689c9

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Citations in the corpus

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], [”
Cost optimal scenarios of a future highly renewable European electricity system: Exploring the influence of weather data, cost parameters and policy constraints (2018, methodology): “evertheless, the load data could change both in its proﬁle and volume under an increasing electriﬁcation and coupling of other sectors, for instance due a wider use of heat pumps or electric vehicles [47,48]. In contrast, for the renewable generation potentials we expect both an inﬂuence from the un”
The sector coupling concept: A critical review (2021, background): “…on the techno-economic aspects of SC, such as the use of renewable electricity for heating (Arabzadeh et al., 2020; Bellocchi et al., 2020; Brown et al., 2018; Felten, 2020; Jimenez-Navarro et al., 2020; Richts et al., 2015; Schaber, 2013; Schaber et al., 2013; Schill & Zerrahn, 2020;…”
Speed of technological transformations required in Europe to achieve different climate goals (2021, methodology): “6% of the European population is estimated to live in the latter [5] where district heating (DH) systems can be deployed.”
Classification and challenges of bottom-up energy system models - A review (2020, background): “[43] presented an open energy system model for Europe studying the benefits of flexibility options provided by sector-coupling technologies such as battery electric vehicles, power-to-gas and thermal storage.”
Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems (2019, background): “A very limited number of studies are available which could reveal the separated value of cross-sectoral integration versus cross-border integration and a final cross-sectoral-border integration [212].”
The role of storage technologies throughout the decarbonisation of the sector-coupled European energy system (2019, neutral): “Finally, it is worth mentioning that the system cost predicted here is significantly lower than that estimated in [17].”