Abstract
Raising the penetration of renewable energy sources constitutes one of the main pillars of contemporary decarbonization strategies. Within this context, further progress is required towards the optimal exploitation of their potential, especially in terms of dispatchability, where the role of storage is considered vital. Although current literature delves into either storage per se or the integration of storage solutions in single renewable technologies, the comparative advantages of each technology remain underexplored. However, high-penetration solutions of renewable energy sources (RES) are expected to combine different technological options. Therefore, the conditions under which each technology outperforms their counterparts need to be thoroughly investigated, especially in cases where storage components are included. This paper aims to deal with this gap, by means of assessing the combination of three competing technologies, namely concentrated solar power (CSP), photovoltaics (PV) and offshore wind, with the storage component. The techno-economic assessment is based on two metrics; the levelized cost of electricity and the net present value. Considering the competition between the technologies and the impact storage may have, the paper’s scope lies in investigating the circumstances, under which CSP could have an advantage against comparable technologies. Overall, PVs combined with storage prevail, as the most feasible technological option in the examined storage scenarios—with an LCOE lower than 0.11 €/kWh. CSP LCOE ranged between 0.1327–0.1513 €/kWh for high capacity factors and investment costs, thus larger storage components. Offshore wind—with a lower storage component—had an LCOE of 0.1402 €/kWh. Thus, CSP presents the potential to outperform offshore wind in cases where the latter technology is coupled with high storage requirements. CSP can be viewed as one of the options that could support European Union (EU) decarbonization scenarios. As such, an appropriate market design that takes into consideration and values CSP characteristics, namely dispatchability, is needed at the EU level.
Highlights
Efforts aiming at a decarbonized electricity supply have significantly intensified on a global scale in recent years [1,2,3]
The illustrated results include the sensitivity analysis conducted for concentrated solar power (CSP) with storage, as well as both storage scenarios examined for PV and offshore wind with storage
The overall investment cost has been disaggregated for three specific ranges, each one of them corresponding to different capacity factor (CF) values
Summary
Efforts aiming at a decarbonized electricity supply have significantly intensified on a global scale in recent years [1,2,3]. Energies 2020, 13, 4768 the efficient exploitation of their potential and the apt transformation of the electricity systems in the coming decade [8,9,10] Renewable energy technologies such as offshore wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) comprise two of the most significant alternatives for the generation of low-carbon electricity. Their costs have undergone a significant reduction in recent decades. Energy storage can have a strong influence on the costs of solar and wind electricity, in their effort to meet energy demand in high RES penetration scenarios [26,27,28]
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