heal.abstract |
The issue of climate change, as well as the economic situation at global and national level,
make it imperative to redefine the energy map in the coming decades. The vast majority of
states, through a series of consultations and agreements, have agreed to cut carbon dioxide
emissions in order to transit to a low-carbon society. Therefore, Renewable Energy Sources
(mainly wind and solar) will play a key role in the forming of the energy planning of Greece.
The aim is the very high penetration of Renewable Energy Sources in the final energy
consumption and mainly in the electricity sector. However, there are technical limitations
connected to supply efficiency and stability of the electrical system, that impose a limit on
the rate of renewable energy penetration. Storage of surplus energy produced by RES is the
connecting link in the energy system, in order to confront these limitations.
The present Thesis examines the possibility of fully covering the needs of Greece's electricity
system with the exclusive use of Renewable Energy Sources. The European Union has
already set this goal for the next decades. The study takes into account the monthly
electricity demands for a long period of 11 years (2008-2018) and the monthly wind and
solar energy production at the same period, according to the published statistics of the
network operator (ADMIE) and operator of the energy market (LAGIE).
Developing the appropriate software, the monthly needs for addition energy are calculated
when demand (consumption) exceeds the production of RES. In a 100% RES system this
additional energy should be provided by the energy storage units. Therefore, the cumulative
need of using this energy over the years of stored energy equals the maximum required
storage capacity (in units of energy) that the electrical system must have. On the other hand,
when the generation of RES is higher than consumption, the surplus energy is stored if there
is available capacity in the system, otherwise it is discarded.
This work initially investigates the required storage capacity of the greek electrical system
for various combinations of installed wind and photovoltaic power and derives its optimal
combinations for a given storage capacity. Then, for storage capacity of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 average
consumption days, detailed charts of monthly storage behavior and RES production discards
for the period 2008-2018, are presented. The curves of duration of energy cuts are also
presented in these various cases, in order to evaluate their applicability in other
applications. Finally, a parametric investigation is being carried out on the impact of possible
changes in RES production from year to year due to changed at the weather conditions,
examining various favorable and unfavorable production scenarios of installed wind farms
and/or photovoltaic systems in the Country.
The results show us that meeting the need of the electrical system requires either very high,
impractical, storage capacity, or too large installed capacity of RES units with great
discharges of their production. For realistic values of electricity storage capacity like 1 day of
average consumption, the required total RES generation exceeds the demand by 25% to
55%, depending on the scenario of annual wind and photovoltaic generation, which
corresponds to installed RES power from approximately 36 to 51 GW. |
el |