Planning highly renewable power systems involves compromise across diverse stakeholders. Is it possible to balance techno-economic feasibility with social and political goals?
Read our new @Joule_CP study w @bryn_pickering @EmyColomboPOLI @stefpf 👇
bit.ly/2QkEBSL
Contested decisions include where to locate generation and transmission capacity. Yet, it is common to use a single-result cost-minimising energy system model to inform planning. This neglects alternatives that e.g. avoid problematic concentrations of capacity[..]
We develop a method that generates a variety of spatially-explicit, alternative system configurations which can be used to balance techno-economic feasibility with social and political goals - building on ideas from @etrutnevyte @jfdecarolis @fneum_ @nworbmot
The application of the method to Italy reveals trade-offs like where to site wind farms, hidden in conventional methods. The cost-optimal solution would entail a heavy and unfair share of wind farms in Sardinia, likely leading to local opposition. But many alternatives exist ✌️
PV☀️is a must-have in all examined systems, often complemented by batteries, whilst wind💨expands together with synthetic-gas turbines, all of which must notably increase to replace bioenergy’s firm capacity [...]
Interestingly, replacing firm capacity is a lot easier for highly-interconnected, central regions✨, which can act as a buffer taking advantage of close PV and syngas turbine capacity and wind farms located further away and connected via transmission lines & syngas pipelines[..]
As a result of broader interest for other EU countries wondering what to do with gas infrastructure❓: syngas turbines can contribute to balancing but always with a minor role compared to today’s use 👎 Additional investment into gas infrastructure now is not a good idea [...]
As an example of the alternatives unveiled by SPORES 🙌: see massive concentration of wind and methanation (in Sardinia, the island on the lef) in cost-optimal case, against one with low wind concentration!
Our approach can be applied to other national systems, as well at district & continental scales. It is now implemented in a branch of the open-source #Calliope framework, and soon part of new release with full user documentation!
Ah, one last takeaway: weather ⛈️does dramatically change results if looking only at what's cost-optimal, but #SPORES do allow identifying configurations that are close to optimum regardless of weather conditions! Next step? resilient-SPORES !⚡️
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