Reviewing energy system modelling of decentralized energy autonomy

Jann Weinand, Fabian Johannes Scheller and Russell McKenna

No 41, Working Paper Series in Production and Energy from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Industrial Production (IIP)

Abstract: Research attention on decentralized autonomous energy systems has increased exponentially in the past three decades, as demonstrated by the absolute number of publications and the share of these studies in the corpus of energy system modelling literature. This paper shows the status quo and future modelling needs for research on local autonomous energy systems. A total of 359 studies are roughly investigated, of which a subset of 123 in detail. The studies are assessed with respect to the characteristics of their methodology and applications, in order to derive common trends and insights. Most case studies apply to middle-income countries and only focus on the supply of electricity in the residential sector. Furthermore, many of the studies are comparable regarding objectives and applied methods. Local energy autonomy is associated with high costs, leading to levelized costs of electricity of 0.41 $/kWh on average. By analysing the studies, many improvements for future studies could be identified: the studies lack an analysis of the impact of autonomous energy systems on surrounding energy systems. In addition, the robust design of autonomous energy systems requires higher time resolutions and extreme conditions. Future research should also develop methodologies to consider local stakeholders and their preferences for energy systems.

Keywords: Literature review; energy autonomy; off-grid systems; 100% renewable; energy system analysis; levelized cost of electricty; municipality; remote area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/215852/1/1694072398.pdf (application/pdf)

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:zbw:kitiip:41

DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000118014

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series in Production and Energy from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Industrial Production (IIP)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().