100% Renewable Energy Supply for Brazil—The Role of Sector Coupling and Regional Development

Abstract

Abstract:With its abundance of renewable energy potentials, not only for hydropower and bioenergy, but also for wind and solar, Brazil provides good prospects for a carbon neutral energy system. The role of an enhanced coupling of the power, heat and transport sectors in such systems is not yet fully understood. This paper analyses the least-cost composition and operation of a fully renewable power supply system as part of a carbon neutral energy supply in Brazil. It relies on the application of the high-resolution energy system model REMix. Our analysis reveals that the expansion of wind and solar power is more cost-efficient than the construction of additional hydroelectric plants. This is favoured because the existing hydroelectric plants offer large capacity of dispatchable power to compensate for fluctuations, and thus no additional storage is necessary. Furthermore, the REMix analysis indicates that varying shares of solar and wind power technologies as well as the spatial distribution of power generation have only a small influence on supply costs. This implies that the transformation strategy in Brazil can be primarily based on other criteria such as regional development, public acceptance, environmental impact or industrial policy without major impacts on system costs.

Power generation expansion planning with complementarity between renewable sources and regions for 100% renewable energy systems

“…The regional scenario had a better distribution between the RES and can ensure the future demand without new hydropower reservoirs. Such conclusion is aligned with the results of a study with a 100% renewable energy system projected to 2050 …”

“…Such conclusion is aligned with the results of a study with a 100% renewable energy system projected to 2050. 25 The share of each RES used in this study is compared with the results presented in other works in Table 5. As can be observed, the present work as a result similar to the result presented by Greenpeace-E [R] and Gils for hydro and wind power (both assessments consider a 100% renewable energy system in 2050).…”

“…[25][26][27] Some researchers have used monthly resolution data, 22 daily resolution data, 28 the day divided in five periods and considering four days per year, 29,30 or hourly resolution data. 24,25 The spatial resolution can be a global average for the country, or with the country divided in subregions as it is verified in the Message-Brazil model. 29 Some researchers use the political subdivisions 25 and others consider some specific locations for each source.…”

“…32 Most researches have used linear programming to solve these problems, 22,28 including the Message model, 29 and a few of researches have used a multi-criteria decision analysis 30 or non-linear programming. 33 In these works, the optimal mix can be found minimizing the expansion cost, 25,29,30,34 minimizing the thermal power generation and the loss of load, 22,28 minimizing the energy surpluses and deficits, 33,34 or minimizing the cost of energy storage. 10,35 Nevertheless, in countries with large reservoirs (eg, Brazil), these optimization models do not optimize the hydropower's flow neither the use of reservoirs.…”

Incorporating Power Transmission Bottlenecks into Aggregated Energy System Models

“…For the implementation, the ESM REMix [6] is parameterized using the empirical data for the year 2012. Typical applications of REMix range from theoretical studies concerning future energy supply with different shares of vRES [34] and country specific scenario studies [35,36] to the assessment of system reliability [37] and flexibility requirements [38] of the European energy system in the future. REMix can thus be configured for multiple study purposes.…”