Assessment of Electricity Decarbonization Scenarios for New Zealand and Great Britain using a Plant Dispatch and Electrical Energy Storage Modelling Framework

Andrew Crossland, Keith Scoles, Allen Wang, Chris Groves and Susan Sun
Additional contact information
Andrew Crossland: Durham Energy Institute, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Keith Scoles: Power it Fwd, 139 Morgans Road, Timaru, Canterbury 7910, New Zealand
Allen Wang: FIndependent consultant, 54 Cobden Terrace, Gateshead NE8 3TB, UK
Chris Groves: Department of Engineering, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
Susan Sun: Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: This paper proposes a methodology to assess the impact of alternative electricity generation and energy storage scenarios for meeting electricity demand on a national level. The method combines real and synthetic electricity generation and demand data to investigate different decarbonization strategies using solar and wind generation and electrical energy storage. This method is applied to provide relevant case studies for two geographically similar electricity systems in New Zealand and Great Britain. Newly available solar and wind data sets at hourly resolution are used within this method for these systems to assess the potential contribution of these technologies and as such, to refresh understanding of the impact of these technologies on decarbonization strategies against historical and future demand patterns. Although wind, solar and storage technologies are found to reduce the carbon emissions in both electricity systems, a key result is quantifying the impact this has on traditional generation as a backup resource. In New Zealand an investment in wind and solar equivalent to less than 15% of the wind/solar capacity in Great Britain is found to (i) reduce fossil fuel use to less than 2% of annual electricity generation requirements in the data assessed and (ii) remove the need for continuous operation of fossil fuel plants. Further, it is shown that existing hydro storage potential could be used to create near complete decarbonization of New Zealand electricity

Keywords: energy transition; renewable energy potential; energy storage; plant dispatch; decarbonization; electricity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2799/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/11/2799/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:11:p:2799-:d:366025

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().