Abstract
Optimal design of regional integrated energy systems (RIES) offers great potential for better managing energy sources, lower costs and reducing environmental impact. To capture the transition process from fossil fuel to renewable energy, a flexible RIES, including the traditional energy system (TES) based on the coal and biomass based distributed energy system (BDES), was designed to meet a regional multiple energy demand. In this paper, we analyze multiple scenarios based on a new rural community in Dalian (China) to capture the relationship among the energy supply cost, increased share of biomass, system configuration transformation, and renewable subsidy according to regional CO2 emission abatement control targets. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model was developed to find the optimal solutions. The results indicated that a 40.58% increase in the share of biomass in the RIES was the most cost-effective way as compared to the separate TES and BDES. Based on the RIES with minimal cost, by setting a CO2 emission reduction control within 40%, the RIES could ensure a competitive total annual cost as compared to the TES. In addition, when the reduction control exceeds 40%, a subsidy of 53.83 to 261.26 RMB/t of biomass would be needed to cover the extra cost to further increase the share of biomass resource and decrease the CO2 emission.
Highlights
The increasing greenhouse gas emissions and declining fossil fuel reserves have highlighted the need for a sustainable energy transition
A majority of the global final energy consumption is still provided by carbon-intensive fossil fuels [1], while less than 20% is provided by renewable energy sources [2]
traditional energy system (TES) scenario: energy needs are only provided by TESs; based distributed energy system (BDES) scenario: energy needs are provided by BDESs; RIESmin scenario: energy needs are provided by a combination of TES and BDES
Summary
The increasing greenhouse gas emissions and declining fossil fuel reserves have highlighted the need for a sustainable energy transition. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is not a one-step process. Both optimal integration of various energy resources and technologies and effective renewable policies are conductive to reduce the investment of renewable energy and achieve low carbon development. The current studies on renewable energy transition are mainly focused on national or regional level energy planning and low-carbon policy making [5,6,7,8]. This transition planning is usually lacking in feasibility and enforceability when applied to specific areas
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