No abstract

The transformation of the energy system towards a sustainable reduction of CO2 emissions and the consequently rising contribution of fluctuating energy sources to the German energy system leads to new challenges. In particular, the sufficiency of the present powerline system is of interest. To evaluate the German network sufficiency, a data‐based modelling is used to measure the number of intervals with insufficient transport capabilities as well as the yearly sum of infeasible power transports. In order to do so, the actual residual loads are calculated from the power data in the database “GEOWISOL” and the data on the German power grid are obtained from the project “SciGrid.” The temporal resolution of power data is 15 min, and the spatial resolution refers to the 2‐digit ZIP code regions. The present transmission network is shown to be insufficient in a linearly increasing number of intervals for scenarios with increasing renewable power production. The uncertainties of the results presented are also investigated by means of a Monte Carlo simulation with the known uncertainties of the power data. The simulation results in a relative uncertainty for the number of intervals with insufficient transport capabilities of the network of roughly 1%. Thus, it can be used in the future either to investigate network expansion plans or to validate network expansion studies with simulated data or synthetic networks.

The fluctuations of the renewable energies request storage systems as a significant part of the future energy system. Here we introduce a measurement approach regarding the regional coverage of the power demand and the influence of a storage system on it. The approach is based on measured power data with given uncertainties. The resolution is 15 minutes in the time domain and 2-digit ZIP code regions in the spatial domain. An idealized storage model is introduced, and one storage is implemented for each region. As a result, the regional coverage is measured for different storage parameters and the respective measurement uncertainty is assessed to be below the set goal of 2 %. Furthermore, the inverse problem, i. e. the storage dimensioning, is investigated by estimating the necessary storage parameters to achieve a desired regional coverage. Findings: electrical self-sufficiency can be reached in 23 out of 95 regions, in contrast in 56 regions the regional coverage is increased insignificantly regardless of the parameters of the storage system. This illustrates the necessity of power transport to enable the increase of regional coverage. Concluding, the proposed measurement approach enables the estimation of storage parameters and can be used for storage dimensioning.