Does renewable electricity supply match with energy demand? – A spatio-temporal analysis for the German case

Abstract

While progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is notable in many national power sectors, other sectors such as transportation and often heating are lagging behind. One strategy to propagate greenhouse gas emission reductions from the power sector to other sectors is sector coupling. Against this backdrop, we ask the following two questions: (1) To what extent does demand for(useful and final) energy match the supply of renewable energy sources in the dimensions of time and space? (2) What impacts of sector coupling pathways on future infrastructure requirements can be derived from applying spatio-temporal analyses? For our analyses, we assume a scenario with 95% greenhouse gas emission reductions for Germany as a case study targeted by the government for 2050. We choose a consumer-driven approach, analyzing the energy value chain backward from consumption to supply for the different sector coupling technologies. From useful energy consumption, we derive final energy demand patterns in high temporal, sectoral, and regional resolution. We then evaluate implications for different placement strategies of renewable energy expansion. The key contributions of our study are twofold: Firstly, we introduce a generalizable and transferable consumer-driven method for holistic analyses of energy systems with high degrees of sector coupling. Secondly, we provide policy recommendations from our results regarding effective and efficient strategies for integrating renewable energy sources into present energy systems.