Researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands claim to have demonstrated that almost all of Europe's power demand can be met by solar PV and wind energy, with dispatchable hydrogen being required only for a small portion of total demand.
They also found that overbuilding renewable energy capacity and “proactive” curtailment would provide the continent's energy system with enough firm power to manage clean energy intermittency. Their analysis relies on the concept of the “firm kWh premium,” which they define as the ratio of a firm kWh’s levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the LCOE of an “unconstrained” renewable kWh. It is intended to measure the relative costs of converting renewable energy into firm power.
The scientists also introduced a distinction between “firm LCOE” comprising all generation and storage technologies and “unconstrained LCOE” including only “uncurtailed” solar PV and wind power. “To analyze the cost premium of converting intermittent renewable power into firm power in Europe, we compare multiple scenarios with different technology mixes, including solar PV, onshore and offshore wind, battery storage, electrolysis, and existing hydropower and nuclear capacity,” they further explained.
The research team developed a model to assess the lowest annualized system costs of the European energy system, the Pan-European Intermittent Renewable Overbuilding & Curtailment Optimization Model (PEIROCOM). It can reportedly optimize the installed capacity and dispatch of all selected technologies simultaneously, with the system having to match the electricity demand every hour and the annual hydrogen demand each year.
The academics considered Europe as fully self-sufficient with zero import-export of power or hydrogen, with each of the 37 countries included in the modeling having a self-sufficiency rate of at least 80%. They also assumed a 95% efficiency for all high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections.
The proposed scenario also included 50 market nodes, 120 solar PV nodes, 121 onshore wind nodes, 56 offshore wind nodes, 109 HVAC interconnections, and 51 HVDC interconnections.
The group also considered six scenarios: a base scenario where solar and wind are operating combined with lithium-ion storage; a base scenario with wind, solar, storage and hydrogen; two renewables-dominated scenarios including current nuclear and hydropower capacity; a renewables-centered scenario where hydrogen turbines are used for dispatchable electricity generation; and a scenario including electrolyzers and hydrogen gas turbines.
“These six scenarios illustrate that although overbuilding and curtailment will significantly lower system costs in a renewables-only system, an renewables-only grid is more expensive than a grid with some type of dispatchable capacity,” the researchers emphasized.
Their analysis showed that renewables and short-term storage can meet around 92.5% of Europe's electricity demand, with the remaining 7.5% being satisfied by green hydrogen.
“Curtailment of renewables is necessary to optimize the system costs in a fully renewable electricity grid,” they explained. “However, contrary to prior research, we show that significantly less curtailment is required when adequate demand response and seasonal storage are available.
Hydrogen is expected to create significant demand response capacity while retrofitted gas turbines can help use hydrogen during periods of lower renewables generation. “We prove that this system is cheaper and more robust, as it can handle a wider variety of weather patterns over multiple years,” the academics concluded.
Their findings can be found in the paper “Firm wind and solar photovoltaic power with proactive curtailment: A European analysis,” published in Energy Conversion and Management.
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