Impacts of Inter-annual Wind and Solar Variations on the European Power System

Collins, Seán; Deane, Paul; Gallachóir, Brian Ó; Pfenninger, Stefan; Staffell, Iain

doi:10.1016/j.joule.2018.06.020

Cited by 170 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…It is observed that trends in different samples of the load and renewable generation time series are reflected in the details of the simulation results, but only weakly affect the resulting total system costs. The robustness of the overall results to input weather data from different years confirms earlier results from the literature [53], however specific technologies may be affected by inter-annual variability, so the most robust results are found by taking weather data from several years (see for instance [54]). A shift from an hourly resolution to a 3 hour sampling in the time series can increase the share of solar power generation due to the corresponding smoothing of fluctuations on this time scale, but again the changes are slight.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Cost optimal scenarios of a future highly renewable European electricity system: Exploring the influence of weather data, cost parameters and policy constraints

Schlachtberger

Brown

Schäfer

et al. 2018

Energy

128

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Cost optimal scenarios derived from models of a highly renewable electricity system depend on the specific input data, cost assumptions and system constraints. Here this influence is studied using a techno-economic optimisation model for a networked system of 30 European countries, taking into account the capacity investment and operation of wind, solar, hydroelectricity, natural gas power generation, transmission, and different storage options. A considerable robustness of total system costs to the input weather data and to moderate changes in the cost assumptions is observed. Flat directions in the optimisation landscape around cost-optimal configurations often allow system planners to choose between different technology options without a significant increase in total costs, for instance by replacing onshore with offshore wind power capacity in case of public acceptance issues. Exploring a range of carbon dioxide emission limits shows that for scenarios with moderate transmission expansion, a reduction of around 57% compared to 1990 levels is already cost optimal. For stricter carbon dioxide limits, power generated from gas turbines is at first replaced by generation from increasing renewable capacities. Non-hydro storage capacities are only built for low-emission scenarios, in order to provide the necessary flexibility to meet peaks in the residual load.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Cost optimal scenarios of a future highly renewable European electricity system: Exploring the influence of weather data, cost parameters and policy constraints

Schlachtberger

Brown

Schäfer

et al. 2018

Energy

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In other words, annual variations within a given climate change scenario are larger than the difference between scenarios. This indicates that it is more important to incorporate existing inter-annual variation in long-term electricity system design decisions, as discussed by Collins et al, 54 compared to including the effect of climate change. Furthermore, a paired t test reveals that, in most cases, the null hypothesis of no difference between the historical and the future 20-year mean values of the key metrics cannot be rejected (95% confidence).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

21st Century Climate Change Impacts on Key Properties of a Large-Scale Renewable-Based Electricity System

Kozarcanin

Liu

Andresen

2019

Joule

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Wind and solar sources currently drive an increased weather-dependent electricity production because of decreasing costs and efforts to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately, some degree of climate change appears to be unavoidable. We use different projections of climatic outcomes over the 21st century to assess how important key metrics of a highly renewable electricity system are affected by climate change. Smail Kozarcanin, Hailiang Liu, Gorm Bruun Andresen sko@eng.au.dk (S.K.) gba@eng.au.dk (G.B.A.) HIGHLIGHTS Climate change shows impacts on large-scale metrics of a European electricity system Largest climate impacts are observed within fully winddominated electricity systems 6 high-resolution CMIP5 GCMs under the forcing of three IPCC RCPs have been used State-of-the-art wind and solar capacity factors and electricity demand data were used Kozarcanin et al., SUMMARYFalling prices and significant technology developments currently drive an increased weather-dependent electricity production from renewables. In light of the changing climate, it is relevant to investigate to what extent climate change directly impacts future highly weather-dependent electricity systems. Here, we use three IPCC CO 2 concentration pathways for the period 2006-2100 with six high-resolution climate experiments for the European domain. Climate data are used to calculate bias-adjusted 3-hourly time series of wind and solar generation and temperature-corrected demand time series for 30 European countries using a state-of-the-art methodology. Weather-driven electricity system analysis is then applied to compare five key metrics of highly renewable electricity systems. We find that climate change changes the need for dispatchable electricity by up to 20%. The remaining key metrics, such as the benefit of transmission and storage as well as requirements for balancing capacity and reserves, change by up to 5%.

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“…Thirdly, only one single year of historical weather data (2015) has been modelled. Since the optimal wind/solar mix is very likely sensitive to the capacity factors of wind and solar, different weather years may lead to a slightly different picture [38]. For the sake of simplicity, electricity and heating demand are fixed to today's values and considered to be inelastic, which can be improved by implementing heat savings and demand-side management (DSM).…”

Section: Limitations Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of CO2 prices on the design of a highly decarbonised coupled electricity and heating system in Europe

et al. 2019

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Ambitious targets for renewable energy and CO 2 taxation both represent political instruments for decarbonisation of the energy system. We model a high number of coupled electricity and heating systems, where the primary sources of CO 2 neutral energy are from variable renewable energy sources (VRES), i.e., wind and solar generators. The model includes hourly dispatch of all technologies for a full year for every country in Europe. In each model run, the amount of renewable energy and the level of CO 2 tax are fixed exogenously, while the cost-optimal composition of energy generation, conversion, transmission and storage technologies and the corresponding CO 2 emissions are calculated. We show that even for high penetrations of VRES, a significant CO 2 tax of more than 100 e/tCO 2 is required to limit the combined CO 2 emissions from the sectors to less than 5% of 1990 levels, because curtailment of VRES, combustion of fossil fuels and inefficient conversion technologies are economically favoured despite the presence of abundant VRES. A sufficiently high CO 2 tax results in the more efficient use of VRES by means of heat pumps and hot water storage, in particular. We conclude that a renewable energy target on its own is not sufficient; in addition, a CO 2 tax is required to decarbonise the electricity and heating sectors and incentivise the least cost combination of flexible and efficient energy conversion and storage.heating sectors in Europe. The annual end use demands in both sectors are similar: electricity consumption in Europe in 2015 accounted for 2,854 TWh el (in terms of electricity), while the heating demand in the residential and services sectors represented 3,562 TWh th (in terms of thermal energy), [5]. Regarding greenhouse gas emissions, electricity and low-temperature heating accounted for 1066 Mt and 556 Mt of CO 2 emissions respectively [6]. Previous energy models applied to different regions [2,3,[7][8][9] have shown that imposing a strong CO 2 constraint leads to high Variable Renewable Energy Sources (VRES) penetrations combined with a high-efficiency sector-coupled energy system, referred to as 'Smart Energy System' by Lund and coauthors [4,8]. For instance, under a 95% CO 2 reduction constraint relative to 1990 in Europe [10], energy modelling approaches based on scenario comparison [8] or cost optimisation [2]

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Impacts of Inter-annual Wind and Solar Variations on the European Power System

Cited by 170 publications

References 55 publications

Cost optimal scenarios of a future highly renewable European electricity system: Exploring the influence of weather data, cost parameters and policy constraints

Cost optimal scenarios of a future highly renewable European electricity system: Exploring the influence of weather data, cost parameters and policy constraints

21st Century Climate Change Impacts on Key Properties of a Large-Scale Renewable-Based Electricity System

Impact of CO2 prices on the design of a highly decarbonised coupled electricity and heating system in Europe

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