IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/266396.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

100% Renewable Energy Scenarios for North America—Spatial Distribution and Network Constraints

Author

Listed:
  • Zozmann, Elmar
  • Göke, Leonard
  • Kendziorski, Mario
  • Rodriguez del Angel, Citlali
  • von Hirschhausen, Christian
  • Winkler, Johanna

Abstract

The urgency to combat climate change and the widely distributed, increasingly competitive renewable resources in North America are strong arguments to explore scenarios for a renewable energy supply in the region. While the current power system of North America is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, namely natural gas, coal and oil, and some nuclear power plants, some current policies at the state level, and future federal policies are likely to push the share of different renewable sources available in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. This paper explores three scenarios for a renewable energy supply, using a bottom-up energy system model with a high level of spatial and time granularity. The scenarios span the extremes with respect to connecting infrastructure: while one scenario only looks at state-level supply and demand, without interconnections, the other extreme scenario allows cross-continental network investments. The model results indicate that the North American continent (a) has sufficient renewable potential to satisfy its energy demand with renewables, independent of the underlying grid assumption, (b) solar generation dominates the generation mix as the least-cost option under given renewable resource availability and (c) simultaneous planning of generation and transmission capacity expansion does not result in high grid investments, but the necessary flexibility to integrate intermittent renewable generation is rather provided by the existing grid in combination with short-term and seasonal storages.

Suggested Citation

  • Zozmann, Elmar & Göke, Leonard & Kendziorski, Mario & Rodriguez del Angel, Citlali & von Hirschhausen, Christian & Winkler, Johanna, 2021. "100% Renewable Energy Scenarios for North America—Spatial Distribution and Network Constraints," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(3).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:266396
    DOI: 10.3390/en14030658
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/266396/1/energies-14-00658-v2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3390/en14030658?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bistline, John E.T. & Brown, Maxwell & Siddiqui, Sauleh A. & Vaillancourt, Kathleen, 2020. "Electric sector impacts of renewable policy coordination: A multi-model study of the North American energy system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi, Mark A. & Ingraffea, Anthony R. & Howarth, Robert W. & Bazouin, Guillaume & Bridgeland, Brett & Burkart, Karl & Chang, Martin & Chowdhury, Navid & Cook, Roy & Escher, Giu, 2014. "A roadmap for repowering California for all purposes with wind, water, and sunlight," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 875-889.
    3. Staffell, Iain & Pfenninger, Stefan, 2016. "Using bias-corrected reanalysis to simulate current and future wind power output," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1224-1239.
    4. Karlo Hainsch & Leonard Göke & Claudia Kemfert & Pao-Yu Oei & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2020. "European Green Deal: Mit ambitionierten Klimaschutzzielen und erneuerbaren Energien aus der Wirtschaftskrise," DIW Wochenbericht, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 87(28), pages 499-506.
    5. Aghahosseini, Arman & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Barbosa, Larissa S.N.S. & Breyer, Christian, 2019. "Analysing the feasibility of powering the Americas with renewable energy and inter-regional grid interconnections by 2030," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 187-205.
    6. Hansen, Kenneth & Breyer, Christian & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 471-480.
    7. Huntington, Hillard G. & Bhargava, Abha & Daniels, David & Weyant, John P. & Avraam, Charalampos & Bistline, John & Edmonds, James A. & Giarola, Sara & Hawkes, Adam & Hansen, Matthew & Johnston, Peter, 2020. "Key findings from the core North American scenarios in the EMF34 intermodel comparison," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    8. Pfenninger, Stefan & Staffell, Iain, 2016. "Long-term patterns of European PV output using 30 years of validated hourly reanalysis and satellite data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1251-1265.
    9. Arman Aghahosseini & Dmitrii Bogdanov & Christian Breyer, 2017. "A Techno-Economic Study of an Entirely Renewable Energy-Based Power Supply for North America for 2030 Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-28, August.
    10. Luis Sarmiento & Thorsten Burandt & Konstantin Löffler & Pao-Yu Oei, 2019. "Analyzing Scenarios for the Integration of Renewable Energy Sources in the Mexican Energy System—An Application of the Global Energy System Model (GENeSYS-MOD)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-24, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bojana Škrbić & Željko Đurišić, 2023. "Novel Planning Methodology for Spatially Optimized RES Development Which Minimizes Flexibility Requirements for Their Integration into the Power System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-34, April.
    2. Gutiérrez-Meave, Raúl & Rosellón, Juan & Sarmiento, Luis, 2021. "The Effect of Changing Marginal-Cost to Physical-Order Dispatch in the Power Sector," RFF Working Paper Series 21-19, Resources for the Future.
    3. Cole, Wesley & Antonysamy, Adithya & Brown, Patrick & Sergi, Brian & Mai, Trieu & Denholm, Paul, 2023. "How much might it cost to decarbonize the power sector? It depends on the metric," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    4. Lohr, C. & Schlemminger, M. & Peterssen, F. & Bensmann, A. & Niepelt, R. & Brendel, R. & Hanke-Rauschenbach, R., 2022. "Spatial concentration of renewables in energy system optimization models," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 144-154.

    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. Elmar Zozmann & Leonard Göke & Mario Kendziorski & Citlali Rodriguez del Angel & Christian von Hirschhausen & Johanna Winkler, 2021. "100% Renewable Energy Scenarios for North America—Spatial Distribution and Network Constraints," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Chris Matthew & Catalina Spataru, 2021. "Scottish Islands Interconnections: Modelling the Impacts on the UK Electricity Network of Geographically Diverse Wind and Marine Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Osorio-Aravena, Juan Carlos & Aghahosseini, Arman & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Caldera, Upeksha & Ghorbani, Narges & Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai & Khalili, Siavash & Muñoz-Cerón, Emilio & Breyer, Christian, 2021. "The impact of renewable energy and sector coupling on the pathway towards a sustainable energy system in Chile," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Galván, Antonio & Haas, Jannik & Moreno-Leiva, Simón & Osorio-Aravena, Juan Carlos & Nowak, Wolfgang & Palma-Benke, Rodrigo & Breyer, Christian, 2022. "Exporting sunshine: Planning South America’s electricity transition with green hydrogen," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    5. Rey-Costa, Elona & Elliston, Ben & Green, Donna & Abramowitz, Gab, 2023. "Firming 100% renewable power: Costs and opportunities in Australia's National Electricity Market," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P1).
    6. Richard Wallsgrove & Jisuk Woo & Jae-Hyup Lee & Lorraine Akiba, 2021. "The Emerging Potential of Microgrids in the Transition to 100% Renewable Energy Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-28, March.
    7. Henning Meschede & Paul Bertheau & Siavash Khalili & Christian Breyer, 2022. "A review of 100% renewable energy scenarios on islands," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(6), November.
    8. Matthias Greiml & Florian Fritz & Josef Steinegger & Theresa Schlömicher & Nicholas Wolf Williams & Negar Zaghi & Thomas Kienberger, 2022. "Modelling and Simulation/Optimization of Austria’s National Multi-Energy System with a High Degree of Spatial and Temporal Resolution," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-33, May.
    9. Alexis Tantet & Marc Stéfanon & Philippe Drobinski & Jordi Badosa & Silvia Concettini & Anna Cretì & Claudia D’Ambrosio & Dimitri Thomopulos & Peter Tankov, 2019. "e 4 clim 1.0: The Energy for a Climate Integrated Model: Description and Application to Italy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-37, November.
    10. Phillips, K. & Moncada, J.A. & Ergun, H. & Delarue, E., 2023. "Spatial representation of renewable technologies in generation expansion planning models," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).
    11. Reyseliani, Nadhilah & Purwanto, Widodo Wahyu, 2021. "Pathway towards 100% renewable energy in Indonesia power system by 2050," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 305-321.
    12. Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Gulagi, Ashish & Fasihi, Mahdi & Breyer, Christian, 2021. "Full energy sector transition towards 100% renewable energy supply: Integrating power, heat, transport and industry sectors including desalination," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    13. Marko Hočevar & Lovrenc Novak & Primož Drešar & Gašper Rak, 2022. "The Status Quo and Future of Hydropower in Slovenia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-13, September.
    14. Lukas Kriechbaum & Philipp Gradl & Romeo Reichenhauser & Thomas Kienberger, 2020. "Modelling Grid Constraints in a Multi-Energy Municipal Energy System Using Cumulative Exergy Consumption Minimisation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-23, July.
    15. Steinegger, Josef & Hammer, Andreas & Wallner, Stefan & Kienberger, Thomas, 2024. "Revolutionizing heat distribution: A method for harnessing industrial waste heat with supra-regional district heating networks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 372(C).
    16. Behrang Shirizadeh, Quentin Perrier, and Philippe Quirion, 2022. "How Sensitive are Optimal Fully Renewable Power Systems to Technology Cost Uncertainty?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    17. Omoyele, Olalekan & Hoffmann, Maximilian & Koivisto, Matti & Larrañeta, Miguel & Weinand, Jann Michael & Linßen, Jochen & Stolten, Detlef, 2024. "Increasing the resolution of solar and wind time series for energy system modeling: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).
    18. Liu, Hailiang & Andresen, Gorm Bruun & Greiner, Martin, 2018. "Cost-optimal design of a simplified highly renewable Chinese electricity network," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 534-546.
    19. Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Toktarova, Alla & Breyer, Christian, 2019. "Transition towards 100% renewable power and heat supply for energy intensive economies and severe continental climate conditions: Case for Kazakhstan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Géremi Gilson Dranka & Paula Ferreira, 2020. "Electric Vehicles and Biofuels Synergies in the Brazilian Energy System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-22, August.

    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:zbw:espost:266396. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    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.