IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v239y2025ics0960148124021578.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hourly electrical load estimates in a 100 % renewable scenario in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Buzzi, Fulvio
  • Bischi, Aldo
  • Gabbrielli, Roberto
  • Desideri, Umberto

Abstract

The study of the impact of the zero-emissions scenarios of several countries on the electrical demand is relevant to analyze the feasibility of the sustainable energy transition. This paper presents a structured method to assess the effect of the 100 % renewable scenario on the hourly electrical load profile of a country taking Italy as reference case study. The hourly discretization is a fundamental approach to evaluate the contribution of the intermittent renewable sources during the day and the proposed methodology can be easily applied to several countries' scenarios. Numerous decarbonization scenarios consider the adoption of electricity in several sectors. Consequently, the primary energy reduction (40 % in the scenario considered) is usually accompanied by a relevant increase of the annual electricity demand (94%–124 %). In this paper, each sector's contribution is estimated separately, and the results show demand peaks above 100 GW and a baseload above 50 GW, which is more than double that of recent years. Electricity consumption is higher in the colder months and hydrogen and synthetic fuel production impacts significantly on the total electricity demand (26%–32 %). The results of this work will be used to verify the feasibility of net zero scenarios with hourly discretization in further research analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Buzzi, Fulvio & Bischi, Aldo & Gabbrielli, Roberto & Desideri, Umberto, 2025. "Hourly electrical load estimates in a 100 % renewable scenario in Italy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:239:y:2025:i:c:s0960148124021578
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.122089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148124021578
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2024.122089?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.

    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:renene:v:239:y:2025:i:c:s0960148124021578. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/renewable-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.