45,852 research outputs found
Renewable electricity generation and transmission network developments in light of public opposition: Insights from Ireland. ESRI Working Paper No. 653 March 2020
This paper analyses how people’s attitudes towards onshore wind power and overhead transmission lines affect the costoptimal
development of electricity generation mixes, under a high renewable energy policy. For that purpose, we use a power
systems generation and transmission expansion planning model, combined with information on public attitudes towards energy
infrastructure on the island of Ireland. Overall, households have a positive attitude towards onshore wind power but their
willingness to accept wind farms near their homes tends to be low. Opposition to overhead transmission lines is even greater. This
can lead to a substantial increase in the costs of expanding the power system. In the Irish case, costs escalate by more than 4.3%
when public opposition is factored into the constrained optimisation of power generation and grid expansion planning across the
island. This is mainly driven by the compounded effects of higher capacity investments in more expensive technologies such as
offshore wind and solar photovoltaic to compensate for lower levels of onshore wind generation and grid reinforcements. The
results also reveal the effect of public opposition on the value of onshore wind, via shadow prices. The higher the level of public
opposition, the higher the shadow value of onshore wind. And, this starkly differs across regions: regions with more wind resource
or closest to major demand centres have the highest shadow prices. The shadow costs can guide policy makers when designing
incentive mechanisms to garner public support for onshore wind installations
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Distributed Resources Shift Paradigms on Power System Design, Planning, and Operation: An Application of the GAP Model
Power systems have evolved following a century-old paradigm of planning and operating a grid based on large central generation plants connected to load centers through a transmission grid and distribution lines with radial flows. This paradigm is being challenged by the development and diffusion of modular generation and storage technologies. We use a novel approach to assess the sequencing and pacing of centralized, distributed, and off-grid electrification strategies by developing and employing the grid and access planning (GAP) model. GAP is a capacity expansion model to jointly assess operation and investment in utility-scale generation, transmission, distribution, and demand-side resources. This paper conceptually studies the investment and operation decisions for a power system with and without distributed resources. Contrary to the current practice, we find hybrid systems that pair grid connections with distributed energy resources (DERs) are the preferred mode of electricity supply for greenfield expansion under conservative reductions in photovoltaic panel (PV) and energy storage prices. We also find that when distributed PV and storage are employed in power system expansion, there are savings of 15%-20% mostly in capital deferment and reduced diesel use. Results show that enhanced financing mechanisms for DER PV and storage could enable 50%-60% of additional deployment and save 15 /MWh in system costs. These results have important implications to reform current utility business models in developed power systems and to guide the development of electrification strategies in underdeveloped grids
Climate policy costs of spatially unbalanced growth in electricity demand: the case of datacentres. ESRI Working Paper No. 657 March 2020
We investigate the power system implications of the anticipated expansion in electricity
demand by datacentres. We perform a joint optimisation of Generation and Transmission Expansion
Planning considering uncertainty in future datacentre growth under various climate policies.
Datacentre expansion imposes significant extra costs on the power system, even under the cheapest
policy option. A renewable energy target is more costly than a technology-neutral carbon reduction
policy, and the divergence in costs increases non-linearly in electricity demand. Moreover, a carbon
reduction policy is more robust to uncertainties in projected demand than a renewable policy. High
renewable targets crowd out other low-carbon options such as Carbon Capture and Sequestration.
The results suggest that energy policy should be reviewed to focus on technology-neutral carbon
reduction policies
A review on the complementarity of renewable energy sources: concept, metrics, application and future research directions
It is expected, and regionally observed, that energy demand will soon be
covered by a widespread deployment of renewable energy sources. However, the
weather and climate driven energy sources are characterized by a significant
spatial and temporal variability. One of the commonly mentioned solutions to
overcome the mismatch between demand and supply provided by renewable
generation is a hybridization of two or more energy sources in a single power
station (like wind-solar, solar-hydro or solar-wind-hydro). The operation of
hybrid energy sources is based on the complementary nature of renewable
sources. Considering the growing importance of such systems and increasing
number of research activities in this area this paper presents a comprehensive
review of studies which investigated, analyzed, quantified and utilized the
effect of temporal, spatial and spatio-temporal complementarity between
renewable energy sources. The review starts with a brief overview of available
research papers, formulates detailed definition of major concepts, summarizes
current research directions and ends with prospective future research
activities. The review provides a chronological and spatial information with
regard to the studies on the complementarity concept.Comment: 34 pages 7 figures 3 table
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Geospatial multi-criteria analysis for identifying high priority clean energy investment opportunities: A case study on land-use conflict in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a globally important emerging economy with rapidly increasing energy demand. The Bangladeshi government's primary capacity expansion plan is to install 13.3 GW of new coal by 2021, including the 1.3 GW Rampal coal power plant to be developed in the Sundarbans. Inadequate geospatial and economic information on clean energy investment opportunities are often a significant barrier for policy makers. Our study helps fill this gap by applying a new method to assess energy investment opportunities, with focus on understanding land-use conflicts, particularly important in this context as Bangladesh is constrained on land for agriculture, human settlements, and ecological preservation. By extending a geospatial multi-criteria analysis model (MapRE) we analyze the cost of various renewable energy generation technologies based on resource availability and key siting criteria such as proximity to transmission and exclusion from steep slopes, dense settlements or ecologically sensitive areas. We find there is more utility-scale solar potential than previously estimated, which can be developed at lower costs than coal power and with minimal cropland tradeoff. We also find significant potential for decentralized roof-top solar in commercial and residential areas. Even with a conservative land use program that reserves maximum land for agriculture and human settlement, there is more renewable energy capacity than needed to support Bangladeshi growth. This study provides critical and timely information for capacity expansion planning in South Asia and demonstrates the use of geospatial models to support decision-making in data-limited contexts
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