Abstract
“Linking the power and transport sectors—Part 1” describes the general principle of “sector coupling” (SC), develops a working definition intended of the concept to be of utility to the international scientific community, contains a literature review that provides an overview of relevant scientific papers on this topic and conducts a rudimentary analysis of the linking of the power and transport sectors on a worldwide, EU and German level. The aim of this follow-on paper is to outline an approach to the modelling of SC. Therefore, a study of Germany as a case study was conducted. This study assumes a high share of renewable energy sources (RES) contributing to the grid and significant proportion of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) in the year 2050, along with a dedicated hydrogen pipeline grid to meet hydrogen demand. To construct a model of this nature, the model environment “METIS” (models for energy transformation and integration systems) we developed will be described in more detail in this paper. Within this framework, a detailed model of the power and transport sector in Germany will be presented in this paper and the rationale behind its assumptions described. Furthermore, an intensive result analysis for the power surplus, utilization of electrolysis, hydrogen pipeline and economic considerations has been conducted to show the potential outcomes of modelling SC. It is hoped that this will serve as a basis for researchers to apply this framework in future to models and analysis with an international focus.
Highlights
Linking the power and transport sectors under the rubric of the so-called “Sector Coupling”(SC) approach as part of the effort to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals is an on-going research topic
The surplus depends on numerous input data, methodologies and assumptions, such as the spatial resolution of the model, the spatial distribution of the renewable energy sources (RES), the applied storage systems, the electrical grid topologies or the used power-to-X applications
Whereas the spatial resolution in the METIS packages in terms of RES modelling or residual load analysis without considering the electrical grid is on the level of 11,268 municipalities in Germany, it changes on the level of 402 counties considering the electrical grid
Summary
Linking the power and transport sectors under the rubric of the so-called “Sector Coupling”. Whereas Part 1 [1] of this paper analysed the general principle of SC, reviewing some of the current literature and showing its potential for the power and transport sectors, this part of the paper will outline a detailed example for modelling SC in the power and transport sectors. Closed model environments aim to represent all sectors and technologies within one major structure [2,3,4,5] They are used to illuminate general tendencies and necessarily simplify complex phenomena, but, on the other hand, are able to run on computers with limited capacities. The surplus power generated by these will be used to produce hydrogen via per the so-called “power-to-gas” approach. To demonstrate the necessary capabilities in terms of model parameters, the surplus analysis shows different spatial resolutions (see Section 3).
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