Abstract
With its abundance of renewable energy potentials, not only for hydropower and bioenergy, but also for wind and solar, Brazil provides good prospects for a carbon neutral energy system. The role of an enhanced coupling of the power, heat and transport sectors in such systems is not yet fully understood. This paper analyses the least-cost composition and operation of a fully renewable power supply system as part of a carbon neutral energy supply in Brazil. It relies on the application of the high-resolution energy system model REMix. Our analysis reveals that the expansion of wind and solar power is more cost-efficient than the construction of additional hydroelectric plants. This is favoured because the existing hydroelectric plants offer large capacity of dispatchable power to compensate for fluctuations, and thus no additional storage is necessary. Furthermore, the REMix analysis indicates that varying shares of solar and wind power technologies as well as the spatial distribution of power generation have only a small influence on supply costs. This implies that the transformation strategy in Brazil can be primarily based on other criteria such as regional development, public acceptance, environmental impact or industrial policy without major impacts on system costs.
Highlights
IntroductionIt is still a major challenge to integrate large shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) into the power system
Renewable energy (RE) sources are a proven option to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.it is still a major challenge to integrate large shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) into the power system
The overall installed power generation capacity identified by REMix reaches about 310 GW in the scenarios Base and concentrated solar power (CSP)-Plan, and about 335 GW in PV-Plan and Red-Inflow
Summary
It is still a major challenge to integrate large shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) into the power system. This is the case for strongly developing countries, which have to cope with a strong increase in energy and power demand in the future. Its primary energy supply is dominated by fossil fuels, mainly oil (36%) and gas (14%). Biomass is another main pillar, covering a broad range from traditional biomass use in the residential sector to modern biofuel applications for power generation and transport fuels
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