Presentations

Abstract

The combination of significantly increasing the supply of variable renewable energy and greater electrification of our economies is essential to decarbonisation. However, if we are to add renewable energy projects at the accelerated pace needed to decarbonise, many of our grids will be overwhelmed from 2030. This will delay the construction of new wind and solar farms and sustain Europe's reliance on fossil fuel imports, while necessitating wasteful curtailment of valuable wind and solar power. EU Energy ministers have asked the European Commission to "provide for a European grid needs assessment and planning that complies with the EU climate and energy targets and meets the decarbonisation objectives". Current grid modelling at European level is limited to identifying corridors. For example, ENTSO-E's Offshore Network Development Plans, identify the corridors needed to bring 496 GW of offshore wind to the shores of Europe. It does not consider optimal circuit sizes of the corridors, it omits more than 80% of Europe's 2050 electricity generation and does not consider how best to get the offshore power ashore and from there integrating the with the onshore grid so electricity can ultimately reach the consumers. Together with researchers from University College Dublin, SuperNode Ltd have created a grid model - the 'Relay Grid Model' - that addresses these shortcomings of current pan-European grid planning. For this contribution, Relay will model a decarbonised European (onshore and sub-sea), meshed DC electricity grid, predominantly based on variable wind and solar. It will illustrate what grid technology and storage would be needed to keep the lights on in such a system; how big a pan-European grid we would need; and establish optimal circuit sizes within the European grid corridors.