Infrastructure Estimates for a Highly Renewable Global Electricity Grid

Dahl, Magnus; Rodriguez, Rolando A.; Søndergaard, Anders A.; Zeyer, Timo; Andresen, Gorm Bruun; Greiner, Martin

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44165-8_25

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The 99th percentile is chosen to reduce the sensitivity towards the weather database. The same assumption is made for instance by (Dahl et al, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…This is a comparable number as found by other studies. (Dahl et al, 2017) found the need for backup energy decrease from 18 to 10 % of the total consumption if Europe, Russia, North-Africa and the Middle East are connected.…”

Section: Discussion Summary and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The concept was also discussed in more detail by the State Grid Corporation of China (Wang, 2015). The needs for infrastructure of a global supergrid were recently discussed by (Dahl et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Renewable power systems have to cope with highly variable generation. Increasing the spatial extent of an interconnected power transmission grid smooths the feed-in by exchange of excess energy over long distances and therefore supports renewable power integration. In this work, we investigate and quantify the balancing potential of a supergrid covering Europe, Africa and Asia. We use ten years of historical weather data to model the interplay of renewable generation and consumption and show that a pan-continental Afro-Eurasian supergrid can smooth renewable generation to a large extent and reduce the need for backup energy by around 50 %. In addition, we show that results for different weather years vary by up to approximately 50 %.

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“…The 99th percentile is chosen to reduce the sensitivity towards the weather database. The same assumption is made for instance by (Dahl et al, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussion Summary and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

et al. 2017

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“…Third, the coarse spatial resolution of the model ignores possible bottleneck in the distribution network neglecting the potential benefits provided by a more distributed PV generation compared to wind. Fourth, interconnection outside of Europe is not included in the model [37]. Expanding transmission capacity to north African countries with high solar resource would probably increase the optimal penetration of solar PV in the network.…”

Section: Interconnection Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of photovoltaics in a sustainable European energy system under variable CO₂emissions targets, transmission capacities, and costs assumptions

Victoria

Zhu

Brown

et al. 2019

Progress in Photovoltaics

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PyPSA-Eur-Sec-30 is an open-source, hourly resolved, networked model of the European energy system that includes one node per country as well as electricity, heating, and transport sectors. The capacity and dispatch of generation and storage technologies in every country can be cost optimized under different CO 2 emissions constraints. This paper presents an overview of the most relevant results previously obtained with the model, highlighting the influence of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation on them.For 95% CO 2 emissions reduction, relative to 1990 level, PV generation supplies in average 33% of the electricity demand. Southern European countries install large PV capacities together with electric batteries, while northern countries install onshore and offshore wind capacities and use hydrogen storage and reinforced interconnections to deal with wind fluctuations. The strong daily generation profile of solar PV heavily impacts the dispatch time series of backup generation and storage technologies. The optimal PV and wind capacities are investigated for variable CO 2 emissions, transmission interconnection among neighbouring countries, and cost assumptions.

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“…The value of cables in such thermal systems is shown to pertain mostly to sharing the lower running costs of the US thermal power plant fleet. Dahl et al [23] and Krutova et al [6] investigate the interconnection of Europe-Asia-North Africa in highly renewable futures. Dahl et al [23] assume that demand is covered entirely by wind and solar generation and that transmission extensions is the only variation management strategy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep Decarbonization and the Supergrid – Prospects for Electricity Transmission between Europe and China

Rechenberg¹,

Hedenus²,

Mattsson³

et al. 2020

SSRN Journal

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Long distance transmission within continents has been shown to be one of the most important variation management strategies in renewable energy systems, where allowing for transmission expansion will reduce system cost by around 20%. In this paper, we test whether the system cost further decreases when transmission is extended to intercontinental connections. We analyze a Eurasian interconnection between China, Mid-Asia and Europe, using a capacity expansion model with hourly time resolution. The model is constrained by an increasingly tighter global cap on CO2 emissions in order to investigate the effect of different levels of reliance on variable sources. Our results show that a supergrid option decreases total system cost by a maximum of 5%, compared to continental grid integration. This maximum effect is achieved when (i) the generation is constrained to be made up almost entirely by renewables, (ii) the land available for VRE farms is relatively limited and the demand is relatively high and (iii) the cost for solar PV and storage is high. The importance of these two factors is explained by that a super grid allows for harnessing of remote wind-, solar-and hydro resources as well as management of variations, both of which are consequential only in cases where dispatchable resources are limited or very costly. As for the importance of the cost for storage, it represents a competing variation management option, and when it has low cost, it substitutes part of the role of the supergrid, which is to manage variations through long-distance trade. The cost decrease from a Eurasian supergrid was found to be between 0% and 5%, compared to the cost in the case of continental-scale grids. We conclude that the benefits of a supergrid from a techno-economic perspective are in most cases negligible, or modest at best.

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Infrastructure Estimates for a Highly Renewable Global Electricity Grid

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

The role of photovoltaics in a sustainable European energy system under variable CO₂emissions targets, transmission capacities, and costs assumptions

Deep Decarbonization and the Supergrid – Prospects for Electricity Transmission between Europe and China

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Infrastructure Estimates for a Highly Renewable Global Electricity Grid

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

The smoothing effect for renewable resources in an Afro-Eurasian power grid

The role of photovoltaics in a sustainable European energy system under variable CO2emissions targets, transmission capacities, and costs assumptions

Deep Decarbonization and the Supergrid – Prospects for Electricity Transmission between Europe and China

Contact Info

Product

Resources

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The role of photovoltaics in a sustainable European energy system under variable CO₂emissions targets, transmission capacities, and costs assumptions