Impacts of Inter-annual Wind and Solar Variations on the European Power System
File(s)1-s2.0-S254243511830285X-main.pdf (2.81 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Collins, Seán
Deane, Paul
Ó Gallachóir, Brian
Pfenninger, Stefan
Staffell, Iain
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Weather-dependent renewable energy resources are playing a key role in decarbonizing electricity. There is a growing body of analysis on the impacts of wind and solar variability on power system operation. Existing studies tend to use a single or typical year of generation data, which overlooks the substantial year-to-year fluctuation in weather, or to only consider variation in the meteorological inputs, which overlooks the complex response of an interconnected power system. Here, we address these gaps by combining detailed continent-wide modeling of Europe's future power system with 30 years of historical weather data. The most representative single years are 1989 and 2012, but using multiple years reveals a 5-fold increase in Europe's inter-annual variability of CO2 emissions and total generation costs from 2015 to 2030. We also find that several metrics generalize to linear functions of variable renewable penetration: CO2 emissions, curtailment of renewables, wholesale prices, and total system costs.
Date Issued
2018-10-17
Date Acceptance
2018-06-28
Citation
Joule, 2018, 2 (10), pp.2076-2090
ISSN
2542-4351
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
2076
End Page
2090
Journal / Book Title
Joule
Volume
2
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30370421
PII: S2542-4351(18)30285-X
Grant Number
EP/M001369/1
Subjects
Europe
electricity
grid integration of renewables
renewables
solar power
weather variability
wind power
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
OA Location
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.06.020
Date Publish Online
2018-07-26