Exporting sunshine: Planning South America’s electricity transition with green hydrogen

Abstract

Europe and North America have numerous studies on 100% renewable power systems. South America, however, lacks research on zero-carbon energy systems, especially understanding South America as an interconnected region, despite its great renewable energy sources, increasing population, and economic productivity.This work extends the cost-optimization energy planning model LEELO and applies it to South America. This results in the to-date most complete model for planning South America’s power sector, with a high temporal (8760 time steps per year) and spatial (over 40 nodes) resolution, and 30 technologies involved. Besides the base case, we study how varying spatial resolution for South America impacted investment results (43, 30, 16, 1 node). Finally, we also evaluate green hydrogen export scenarios, from 0% to 20% on top of the electricity demand.Our study reveals that South America’s energy transition will rely, in decreasing order, on solar photovoltaic, wind, gas as bridging technology, and also on some concentrated solar power. Storage technologies equal to about 10% of the total installed power capacity would be required, aided by the existing hydropower fleet. Not only is the transition to renewables technically possible, but it is also the most cost-efficient solution: electricity costs are expected to reach 32 €/MWh from the year 2035 onwards without the need for further fossil fuels.Varying the spatial resolution, the most-resolved model (43 nodes) reveals 11% and 6% more costs than the one-node and one-node-per-country (16) models, respectively, with large differences in investment recommendations, especially in concentrated solar and wind power. The difference between 43 and 30 nodes is negligible in terms of total costs, energy storage, and technology mix, indicating that 30 nodes are an adequate resolution for this region. We then use the 30-node model to analyze hydrogen export scenarios. The electricity costs drop, as hydrogen is not only a load but also a flexibility provider. Most green hydrogen is produced in Chile, Argentina, and northeast Brazil. For future work, we propose to do an integrated energy plan, including transport and heat, for the region, as well as modeling local hydrogen demands. This work aims to inform policymakers of sustainable transitions, and the energy community.