North Sea region energy system towards 2050: integrated offshore grid and sector coupling drive offshore wind installations

Abstract

Abstract. This paper analyses several energy system scenarios towards 2050 for the North Sea region. With focus on offshore wind power, the impacts of meshed offshore grid and sector coupling are studied. First, a project-based scenario, where each offshore wind power plant is connected individually to onshore, is compared to a meshed grid scenario. Both the amount of offshore wind installed and the level of curtailment are assessed. Then, these results are compared to a scenario with sector coupling included. The results show that while the introduction of a meshed grid can increase the amount of offshore wind installed towards 2050, sector coupling is expected to be a more important driver for increasing offshore wind installations. In addition, sector coupling can significantly decrease the level of offshore wind curtailment.

The role of sector coupling in the green transition: A least-cost energy system development in Northern-central Europe towards 2050

“…Solar PV is modelled similar to onshore wind. Solar PV shows generally less differences between the capacity factors of the resource grades compared to wind [34].…”

“…Resource potentials are taken from several sources. Offshore wind potentials for the resource grades are based on [27] and [34]. National large-scale solar PV potentials come from [35], whereas onshore wind national potentials are based on the median of multiple sources ([27], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40]).…”

Design and Operation of Energy Systems with Large Amounts of Variable Generation: IEA Wind TCP Task 25 (Final Summary Report)

“…Sector coupling is expected to further increase the importance of offshore wind in the green transition (Koivisto et al, 2020c). The main conclusions and recommendations for system balancing as well as adequacy, policy, and regulatory aspects are presented in NSON-DK (2020).…”