Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions

Using bias-corrected reanalysis to simulate current and future wind power output

Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems

A review of more than 60 studies (plus m4ore than 65 studies on P2G) on power and energy models based on simulation and optimization was done. Based on these, for power systems with up to 95% renewables, the electricity storage size is found to be below 1.5% of the annual demand (in energy terms). While for 100% renewables energy systems (power, heat, mobility), it can remain below 6% of the annual energy demand. Combination of sectors and diverting the electricity to another sector can play a large role in reducing the storage size. From the potential alternatives to satisfy this demand, pumped hydro storage (PHS) global potential is not enough and new technologies with a higher energy density are needed. Hydrogen, with more than 250 times the energy density of PHS is a potential option to satisfy the storage need. However, changes needed in infrastructure to deal with high hydrogen content and the suitability of salt caverns for its storage can pose limitations for this technology. Power to Gas (P2G) arises as possible alternative overcoming both the facilities and the energy density issues. The global storage requirement would represent only 2% of the global annual natural gas production or 10% of the gas storage facilities (in energy equivalent). The more options considered to deal with intermittent sources, the lower the storage requirement will be. Therefore, future studies aiming to quantify storage needs should focus on the entire energy system including technology vectors (e.g. Power to Heat, Liquid, Gas, Chemicals) to avoid overestimating the amount of storage needed.

/pdf/a-review-at-the-role-of-storage-in-energy-systems-with-a-3pe9h4h281.pdf

A review at the role of storage in energy systems with a focus on Power to Gas and long-term storage

Flexible electricity generation, grid exchange and storage for the transition to a 100% renewable energy system in Europe

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/BeckerEnergy14.pdf

Features of a fully renewable US electricity system: Optimized mixes of wind and solar PV and transmission grid extensions

Due to its spatio-temporal variability, the mismatch between the weather and demand patterns challenges the design of highly renewable energy systems. A principal component analysis is applied to a simplified networked European electricity system with a high share of wind and solar power generation. It reveals a small number of important mismatch patterns, which explain most of the system’s required backup and transmission infrastructure. Whereas the first principal component is already able to reproduce most of the temporal mismatch variability for a solar dominated system, a few more principal components are needed for a wind dominated system. Due to its monopole structure the first principal component causes most of the system’s backup infrastructure. The next few principal components have a dipole structure and dominate the transmission infrastructure of the renewable electricity network.

http://psecommunity.org/wp-content/plugins/wpor/includes/file/1912/LAPSE-2019.1564-1v1.pdf

Principal Mismatch Patterns Across a Simplified Highly Renewable European Electricity Network

A global electricity grid may offer a number of advantages in a future highly renewable energy system dominated by wind and solar power. In this paper, we provide quantitative estimates for the benefits and costs of an intercontinental HVDC grid connecting a number of highly populated super regions in the Northern Hemisphere. The modeling is based on hourly time series of wind and solar power generation calculated from high-resolution global weather data using the Global Renewable Energy Atlas. Taking a European point of view, we find that the annual need for backup energy can be reduced from 18 to 10 % of the load by connecting to North Africa, the Middle East and Russia. A further reduction to 7 % is found for a grid spanning the whole Northern Hemisphere at the expense of substantial increase in transmission capacities. Comparing the economical benefits to the additional cost of intercontinental transmission lines, we estimate that connecting Europe to its geographically nearest neighbors may reduce the total cost of electricity. Longer distance connections to North America or Asia, on the other hand, would require transmission costs to fall to 15–20 % of current levels.

Timo Zeyer

Papers

Features of a fully renewable US electricity system: Optimized mixes of wind and solar PV and transmission grid extensions

Principal Mismatch Patterns Across a Simplified Highly Renewable European Electricity Network

Infrastructure Estimates for a Highly Renewable Global Electricity Grid