Trade-Offs between Geographic Scale, Cost, and Infrastructure Requirements for Fully Renewable Electricity in Europe.

Open access
Date
2020-09-16Type
- Journal Article
Citations
Cited 51 times in
Web of Science
Cited 66 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
The Authors The European potential for renewable electricity is sufficient to enable fully renewable supply on different scales, from self-sufficient, subnational regions to an interconnected continent. We not only show that a continental-scale system is the cheapest, but also that systems on the national scale and below are possible at cost penalties of 20% or less. Transmission is key to low cost, but it is not necessary to vastly expand the transmission system. When electricity is transmitted only to balance fluctuations, the transmission grid size is comparable to today's, albeit with expanded cross-border capacities. The largest differences across scales concern land use and thus social acceptance: in the continental system, generation capacity is concentrated on the European periphery, where the best resources are. Regional systems, in contrast, have more dispersed generation. The key trade-off is therefore not between geographic scale and cost, but between scale and the spatial distribution of required generation and transmission infrastructure. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000440995Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
JouleVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
ElsevierOrganisational unit
09451 - Patt, Anthony G. / Patt, Anthony G.
03962 - Sudret, Bruno / Sudret, Bruno
Funding
715132 - The transition to a renewable electricity system and its interactions with other policy aims (EC)
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Show all metadata
Citations
Cited 51 times in
Web of Science
Cited 66 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics