The Demand Side Management Potential to Balance a Highly Renewable European Power System

Alexander Kies, Bruno U. Schyska and Lueder Von Bremen
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Alexander Kies: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Küpkersweg 70, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Bruno U. Schyska: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Küpkersweg 70, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Lueder Von Bremen: ForWind, Center for Wind Energy Research, Küpkersweg 70, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Shares of renewables continue to grow in the European power system. A fully renewable European power system will primarily depend on the renewable power sources of wind and photovoltaics (PV), which are not dispatchable but intermittent and therefore pose a challenge to the balancing of the power system. To overcome this issue, several solutions have been proposed and investigated in the past, including storage, backup power, reinforcement of the transmission grid, and demand side management (DSM). In this paper, we investigate the potential of DSM to balance a simplified, fully renewable European power system. For this purpose, we use ten years of weather and historical load data, a power-flow model and the implementation of demand side management as a storage equivalent, to investigate the impact of DSM on the need for backup energy. We show that DSM has the potential to reduce the need for backup energy in Europe by up to one third and can cover the need for backup up to a renewable share of 67%. Finally, it is demonstrated that the optimal mix of wind and PV is shifted by the utilisation of DSM towards a higher share of PV, from 19% to 36%.

Keywords: demand side management; renewable energy systems; European power system; energy system modelling; wind energy; solar energy (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: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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