The impact of national policies on Europe-wide power system transition towards net-zero 2050

Rebeka Béres, Auke van der Wel, Amir Fattahi and Machteld van den Broek

Energy, 2024, vol. 310, issue C

Abstract: This research aims to investigate the potential impact of national policies on the attainment of Europe's goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Specifically, it analyses the effects of policies on the power sector, by evaluating capacity expansion portfolios, import reliance, and costs by 2050. A linear programming model, the IESA-EUPS, is utilized to optimize the expansion and operation of the power system, considering 28 nodes and hourly temporal resolution. The study includes five scenarios from 2020 to 2050, with varying levels of biomass and nuclear penetration based on existing member state policies. Results show that by 2050, changes mainly occur in the interplay between firm capacities and cross-border transmission levels. Limiting biomass can significantly increase nuclear energy generation, while enforcing all policies leads to a 40 % rise in cross-border transmission by 2050, due to imbalances between countries. Some member states, such as Spain and Finland, are less affected, whereas others are heavily reliant on firm nuclear capacities. Western European countries with strict biomass and nuclear restrictions may see a boost in nuclear installations in countries allowing it. Member states without both nuclear and biomass may rely more on variable renewables, resulting in surplus electricity and increased LCOE.

Keywords: EU policy; Power sector; Carbon-neutrality; Nuclear; Biomass; Power system modeling; policy analysis; energy system modelling; Europe; capacity expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224029918
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:310:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224029918

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.133216

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().