Laura Sibylle Feuerhake

Optimal heterogeneity in a renewable European electricity system

Supervisor: Martin Greiner

Date student colloquium: 9.3.17

Consider a European energy system, mainly provided by renewable energies and using other energy resources only as backup. This would be a conceivable future, regarding the trend of more acceptance and use of renewable energies.

How would this highly renewable energy system look like with respect to cost reduction?

In this talk I will present a model for a European electricity network and the cost modelling of this network.  Due to the geographical differences across Europe, the resource quality and the temporal generation pattern of variable renewable energy sources vary for each country.

This raises the question, if a heterogeneous spatial distribution of renewables over Europe would be beneficial, and how much heterogeneity would reduce the costs significantly. 

I will explain a strategy of cost optimization of the heterogeneity in the European electricity network and discuss the results.

The talk is based on a submitted paper of a joint group from AU ENG, DC and FIAS.