IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v122y2017icp663-674.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

90–100% renewable electricity for the South West Interconnected System of Western Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Lu, Bin
  • Blakers, Andrew
  • Stocks, Matthew

Abstract

Rapidly increasing penetration of renewables, primarily wind and photovoltaics (PV), is causing a move away from fossil fuel in the Australian electric power industry. This study focuses on the South West Interconnected System in Western Australia. Several high (90% and 100%) renewables penetration scenarios have been modelled, comprising wind and PV supplemented with a small amount of biogas, and compared with a “like-for-like” fossil-fuel replacement scenario. Short-term off-river (closed cycle) pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) is utilised in some simulations as a large-scale conventional storage technology. The scenarios are examined by using a chronological dispatch model. An important feature of the modelling is that only technologies that have been already deployed on a large scale (>150 gigawatts) are utilised. This includes wind, PV and PHES. The modelling results demonstrate that 90–100% penetration by wind and PV electricity is compatible with a balanced grid. With the integration of off-river PHES, 90% renewables penetration is able to provide low-carbon electricity at competitive prices. Pumped hydro also facilitates a 100% renewables scenario which produces zero greenhouse gas emissions with attractive electricity prices. A sensitivity analysis shows the most important factors in the system cost are discount rate and wind turbine cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu, Bin & Blakers, Andrew & Stocks, Matthew, 2017. "90–100% renewable electricity for the South West Interconnected System of Western Australia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 663-674.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:122:y:2017:i:c:p:663-674
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2017.01.077
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217300774
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2017.01.077?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lenzen, Manfred & McBain, Bonnie & Trainer, Ted & Jütte, Silke & Rey-Lescure, Olivier & Huang, Jing, 2016. "Simulating low-carbon electricity supply for Australia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 553-564.
    2. Connolly, D. & Lund, H. & Mathiesen, B.V. & Pican, E. & Leahy, M., 2012. "The technical and economic implications of integrating fluctuating renewable energy using energy storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 47-60.
    3. Denholm, Paul & Hand, Maureen, 2011. "Grid flexibility and storage required to achieve very high penetration of variable renewable electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1817-1830, March.
    4. Elliston, Ben & Diesendorf, Mark & MacGill, Iain, 2012. "Simulations of scenarios with 100% renewable electricity in the Australian National Electricity Market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 606-613.
    5. Elliston, Ben & MacGill, Iain & Diesendorf, Mark, 2013. "Least cost 100% renewable electricity scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 270-282.
    6. Krajacic, Goran & Duic, Neven & Carvalho, Maria da Graça, 2011. "How to achieve a 100% RES electricity supply for Portugal?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 508-517, February.
    7. Foley, Aoife M. & Leahy, Paul G. & Marvuglia, Antonino & McKeogh, Eamon J., 2012. "Current methods and advances in forecasting of wind power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-8.
    8. Lund, Peter D. & Lindgren, Juuso & Mikkola, Jani & Salpakari, Jyri, 2015. "Review of energy system flexibility measures to enable high levels of variable renewable electricity," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 785-807.
    9. Elliston, Ben & MacGill, Iain & Diesendorf, Mark, 2014. "Comparing least cost scenarios for 100% renewable electricity with low emission fossil fuel scenarios in the Australian National Electricity Market," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 196-204.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diesendorf, Mark & Elliston, Ben, 2018. "The feasibility of 100% renewable electricity systems: A response to critics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 318-330.
    2. Riesz, Jenny & Elliston, Ben, 2016. "Research and deployment priorities for renewable technologies: Quantifying the importance of various renewable technologies for low cost, high renewable electricity systems in an Australian case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 298-308.
    3. Ma, Weiwu & Xue, Xinpei & Liu, Gang, 2018. "Techno-economic evaluation for hybrid renewable energy system: Application and merits," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 385-409.
    4. Cheung, Grace & Davies, Peter J., 2017. "In the transformation of energy systems: what is holding Australia back?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 96-108.
    5. Wu, Yunyang & Reedman, Luke J. & Barrett, Mark A. & Spataru, Catalina, 2018. "Comparison of CST with different hours of storage in the Australian National Electricity Market," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 487-496.
    6. de Jong, Pieter & Kiperstok, Asher & Sánchez, Antonio Santos & Dargaville, Roger & Torres, Ednildo Andrade, 2016. "Integrating large scale wind power into the electricity grid in the Northeast of Brazil," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 401-415.
    7. Trainer, Ted, 2017. "Some problems in storing renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 386-393.
    8. Howard, Bahareh Sara & Hamilton, Nicholas E. & Diesendorf, Mark & Wiedmann, Thomas, 2018. "Modeling the carbon budget of the Australian electricity sector's transition to renewable energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 712-728.
    9. Hansen, Kenneth & Breyer, Christian & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 471-480.
    10. Blanco, Herib & Faaij, André, 2018. "A review at the role of storage in energy systems with a focus on Power to Gas and long-term storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1049-1086.
    11. Elliston, Ben & Riesz, Jenny & MacGill, Iain, 2016. "What cost for more renewables? The incremental cost of renewable generation – An Australian National Electricity Market case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 127-139.
    12. Mathiesen, B.V. & Lund, H. & Connolly, D. & Wenzel, H. & Østergaard, P.A. & Möller, B. & Nielsen, S. & Ridjan, I. & Karnøe, P. & Sperling, K. & Hvelplund, F.K., 2015. "Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 139-154.
    13. Keck, Felix & Jütte, Silke & Lenzen, Manfred & Li, Mengyu, 2022. "Assessment of two optimisation methods for renewable energy capacity expansion planning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PA).
    14. Becker, Sarah & Frew, Bethany A. & Andresen, Gorm B. & Zeyer, Timo & Schramm, Stefan & Greiner, Martin & Jacobson, Mark Z., 2014. "Features of a fully renewable US electricity system: Optimized mixes of wind and solar PV and transmission grid extensions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 443-458.
    15. van Kooten, G. Cornelis & Withey, Patrick & Duan, Jon, 2020. "How big a battery?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 196-204.
    16. Ted Trainer, 2022. "Can Australia Run on Renewable Energy: Unsettled Issues and Implications," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 1-17, December.
    17. Keck, Felix & Lenzen, Manfred & Vassallo, Anthony & Li, Mengyu, 2019. "The impact of battery energy storage for renewable energy power grids in Australia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 647-657.
    18. Ćosić, Boris & Krajačić, Goran & Duić, Neven, 2012. "A 100% renewable energy system in the year 2050: The case of Macedonia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 80-87.
    19. Yousefzadeh, Moslem & Lenzen, Manfred, 2019. "Performance of concentrating solar power plants in a whole-of-grid context," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Nadolny, Anna & Cheng, Cheng & Lu, Bin & Blakers, Andrew & Stocks, Matthew, 2022. "Fully electrified land transport in 100% renewable electricity networks dominated by variable generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 562-577.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:122:y:2017:i:c:p:663-674. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.