Exploring the penetration of renewable energy at increasing the boundaries of the urban energy system – The PRISMI plus toolkit application to Monachil, Spain

Abstract

Urban energy system analysis calls for setting the boundaries of the closed system to start the analysis. However, the Municipality limits are not actually the real ones of the energy supply. Moreover, the expansion of renewable energy installations leads to involving more territories as well as providing benefits to the local energy mix depending on the density of the energy demand and the closeness of the producers. In this view, the PRISMI Plus toolkit has been applied to develop the energy transition scenarios of the Municipality of Monachil towards 50% renewable energy systems. To do so, the increasing share of renewables is in parallel with the inclusion of the surrounding areas together with the related energy demand to test the possible synergies in exploiting extensive renewable energy sources and intensive ones. The results have shown that involving the Municipalities of Huétor Vega, La Zubia, and Cájar lead to a more effective renewable penetration having a higher diversification of the energy mix and the critical mass to make investments in the wind sector and Investment cost and operation cost would be raised exponentially by increasing renewable penetration, so, it is expected that cost in 100% penetration is higher than 50 % penetration.