TY - JOUR
T1 - Extreme events in the European renewable power system
T2 - Validation of a modeling framework to estimate renewable electricity production and demand from meteorological data
AU - van der Most, L.
AU - van der Wiel, K.
AU - Benders, R. M.J.
AU - Gerbens-Leenes, P. W.
AU - Kerkmans, P.
AU - Bintanja, R.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Niko Wanders for his help with the runoff routing and providing a routing scheme. This research was funded by the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (ESRIG). This paper is written as part of the ESRIG project ICEVEPS (impact of climate extremes and variability on the European power system).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - With the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the coming decades will see a transition of Europe's power system, currently mainly based on fossil fuels towards a higher share of renewable sources. Increasing effects of fluctuations in electricity production and demand as a result of meteorological variability might cause compound events with unforeseen impacts. We constructed and validated a modeling framework to examine such extreme impact events on the European power system. This framework includes six modules: i) a reservoir hydropower inflow and ii) dispatch module; iii) a run-of-river hydropower production module; iv) a wind energy production module; v) a photovoltaic solar energy production model; and vi) an electricity demand module. Based on ERA5 reanalysis input data and present-day capacity distributions, we computed electricity production and demand for a set of European countries in the period 2015–2021 and compared results to observed data. The model captures the variability and extremes of wind, photovoltaic and run-of-river production well, with correlations between modelled and observed data for most countries of more than 0.87, 0.68 and 0.65 respectively. The hydropower dispatch module also functions well, with correlations up to 0.82, but struggles to capture reservoir inflows and operating procedures of some countries. A case study into the meteorological drivers of extreme events in Sweden and Spain showed that the meteorological conditions during extreme events selected by the model and extracted from observational data are similar, giving confidence in the application of the modeling framework for (future changes in) extreme event analysis.
AB - With the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the coming decades will see a transition of Europe's power system, currently mainly based on fossil fuels towards a higher share of renewable sources. Increasing effects of fluctuations in electricity production and demand as a result of meteorological variability might cause compound events with unforeseen impacts. We constructed and validated a modeling framework to examine such extreme impact events on the European power system. This framework includes six modules: i) a reservoir hydropower inflow and ii) dispatch module; iii) a run-of-river hydropower production module; iv) a wind energy production module; v) a photovoltaic solar energy production model; and vi) an electricity demand module. Based on ERA5 reanalysis input data and present-day capacity distributions, we computed electricity production and demand for a set of European countries in the period 2015–2021 and compared results to observed data. The model captures the variability and extremes of wind, photovoltaic and run-of-river production well, with correlations between modelled and observed data for most countries of more than 0.87, 0.68 and 0.65 respectively. The hydropower dispatch module also functions well, with correlations up to 0.82, but struggles to capture reservoir inflows and operating procedures of some countries. A case study into the meteorological drivers of extreme events in Sweden and Spain showed that the meteorological conditions during extreme events selected by the model and extracted from observational data are similar, giving confidence in the application of the modeling framework for (future changes in) extreme event analysis.
KW - Climate variability
KW - Compound events
KW - Electricity model
KW - European energy transition
KW - Extreme events
KW - Extreme weather impacts
KW - Hydropower generation
KW - Model validation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139862740&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112987
DO - 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112987
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85139862740
SN - 1364-0321
VL - 170
JO - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
JF - Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
M1 - 112987
ER -