Ingeborg Graabak

Zero Emission Building And Conversion Factors Between Electricity Consumption And Emissions Of Greenhouse Gases In A Long Term Perspective

Abstract The CO2 emissions from a building’s power system will change over the life time of the building, and this need to be taken into account to verify whether a building is Zero Emission (ZEB) or not. This paper describes how conversion factors between electricity demand and emissions can be calculated for the European power system in a long term perspective through the application of a large scale electricity market model (EMPS). Examples of two types of factors are given: a conversion factor for average emissions per kWh for the whole European power system as well as a marginal factor for a specific region.

EU 20-20-20 energy policy as a model for global climate mitigation

The EU has established an aggressive portfolio with explicit near-term targets for 2020 – to reduce GHG emissions by 20%, rising to 30% if the conditions are right, to increase the share of renewable energy to 20%, and to make a 20% improvement in energy efficiency – intended to be the first step in a long-term strategy to limit climate forcing. The effectiveness and cost of extending these measures in time are considered along with the ambition and propagation to the rest of the world. Numerical results are reported and analysed for the contribution of the portfolios various elements through a set of sensitivity experiments. It is found that the hypothetical programme leads to very substantial reductions in GHG emissions, dramatic increases in use of electricity, and substantial changes in land-use including reduced deforestation, but at the expense of higher food prices. The GHG emissions reductions are driven primarily by the direct limits. Although the carbon price is lower under the hypothetical protocol than it would be under the emissions cap alone, the economic cost of the portfolio is higher, between 13% and 22%.

Introducing system flexibility to a multinational transmission expansion planning model

Grid investments are considered as sunk costs with a very long lifetime, particularly in an offshore grid context. The market mechanisms for cost recovery of these investments are exposed to an increasing share of variable power generation at the supply side, demanding more flexibility in the system. Hence, it is of great interest to account for these changes in tools being used for decision support. This paper presents an extension of an already existing mixed integer linear program (MILP) for transmission expansion planning (TEP), by including system flexibility in the form of energy storage and demand-side management. Moreover, an enhanced description of variable power generation is used to construct production profiles with a higher level of detail. The latter is achieved by simulating weather data for wind and solar incorporating higher temporal and spatial resolution than in previous studies. The impact of using new times series for variable power generation, and the introduction of system flexibility, are both presented separately using the North Sea area for a comparative case study with 2030 scenarios provided by ENTSO-E. The consequent results of interest include lifetime operational costs (OPEX), investment costs (CAPEX), and offshore wind power curtailment.

Scenarios for integration of large shares of renewable energy in Europe up to 2050

The EU project SUSPLAN has developed a set of scenarios for more efficient integration of renewable energy sources (RES) into future infrastructures regionally and across Europe. The scenarios are used as basis for regional studies of el, gas and heat infrastructures in 9 European countries/regions, correlated with studies of trans-national electricity and gas infrastructures in the time perspective of 2030–2050. The results from the case studies are used to elaborate a set of strategies, recommendations, criteria and benchmarks for political, infrastructure and network decision makers and power distributors.

Developing a wind and solar power data model for Europe with high spatial-temporal resolution

This paper describes a wind and solar power production model for Europe based on the numerical weather prediction model COSMO-EU. The COSMO-EU model has hourly time resolution and a spatial resolution of 7 km × 7 km for Europe. The model is validated against power production information from the system operators in Denmark, Germany and Spain. Mean Average Error (MAE) (hourly error averaged for a year) relative to the wind installed capacity is in the range 4.9%–5.9% for wind power production and 2.4%–5.5% for PV (photovoltaic) power production. Root Mean Square Error is in the range 6.2%–7.6% and 4.5%–9.3% for wind and PV power production respectively. The results are compared with similar modelling based on wind and radiation data from the NCEP reanalysis model. This model has six hourly time resolution for wind resources and daily resolution for radiation data. Modelling of wind power production in Denmark, German and Spain has a MAE in the range 5.6%-8.5% and solar PV production 4.9%–6.4% for the NCEP reanalysis model.

Profitable increases in cross border transmission capacities in a European power system with large shares of renewables

The paper describes analyses of profitable increases in cross border capacities in Europe to 2050 in 4 scenarios with different RES-E shares. The analyses use the power market simulation model EMPS and an investment algorithm sequentially for each decade. Considerable increases in transmission capacities will be necessary. Capacities are more than doubled in 2050 compared with 2010 when profitable investments are carried out. The additional capacity varies from 120 GW to 713 GW dependent on the volume and location of the new renewables. The increase is highest in a scenario that is dominated by large scale offshore wind production and import of solar based production from Africa. Another scenario mainly based on local and regional production has the lowest emissions, the lowest power prices and much lower need for new transmission capacity.

Balancing needs and measures in the future West Central European power system with large shares of wind and solar resources

The future European power system will include large shares of variable wind and solar resources. This paper analyses the variability for the eHighway 2050 scenarios (from the EU 7th Framework project) by modelling wind and solar resources from the COSMO-EU model. It quantifies the variability for the countries in West Central Europe, separate for each country, and integrated assuming there is no transmission limitations. The analysis results show that integration of systems by grids will have a smoothing effect on the variability. However, main challenges with periodically very low output will remain. The paper quantifies need for balancing taking present and future load profiles into consideration. The paper shows that many aggregated small-scale batteries only will have a limited effect on the need for balancing beyond a few hours. Finally, the paper discusses how the large reservoirs in the Norwegian hydropower system may serve to the balancing needs.