Abstract
With large parts of the world moving toward renewable energies, there is an urgent need to organize this large-scale transition effectively. This paper presents a new methodology to guide the planning and siting of renewable electricity generation for countries or larger geographical regions. Its flexible approach accounts for the specific boundary conditions, constraints and available resources of the region of interest and enables solutions that optimize the interplay between the various types of generation. Evolution strategy permits a simultaneous optimization of the placement and the share of renewable electricity generation technologies that are to be added to a system, while most efficiently combining the new with the existing electricity generation and respecting the constraints of the electrical grid. Using Switzerland as case study, we demonstrate the method’s ability to devise national installation scenarios that are efficient, realistic with respect to land use and grid infrastructure and reduce significantly the need for seasonal storage. We show how the spatio-temporal variability of weather-driven electricity generation can be exploited to benefit the electrical system as a whole.
Highlights
Many countries are currently on their path to more renewable energy and scientists are trying to aid this endeavor to their best ability [1,2,3,4]
Evolution strategy permits a simultaneous optimization of the placement and the share of renewable electricity generation technologies that are to be added to a system, while most efficiently combining the new with the existing electricity generation and respecting the constraints of the electrical grid
The optimal solution of PV panel and wind turbine installations has the following characteristics: a high share of wind turbine capacity, and placements in mountainous areas with high wind speeds and high solar radiation in winter. This solution is compatible with the electrical grid and the storage hydropower plants (SHPs) and pumped-storage hydropower plants (PSHPs) are optimized to work concurrently
Summary
Many countries are currently on their path to more renewable energy and scientists are trying to aid this endeavor to their best ability [1,2,3,4]. We propose a new optimization scheme that can devise realistic installation scenarios at high spatial resolution for renewable electricity generation. Our method is suited for geographical regions that exhibit high spatial heterogeneity in the weather that drives the renewable generators. As in our test case: Switzerland, such regions can be rather small but can show high variability across short distances. This variability is found in much larger geographical regions like Europe or North America, which are affected simultaneously by various synoptic weather systems. The high resolution (number of grid cells in the considered territory) admitted by our method allows to truly capture and optimize the electricity generation profiles from solar, wind and hydro sources
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