A regional optimisation of renewable energy supply from wind and photovoltaics with respect to three key energy-political objectives

Sven Killinger, Kai Mainzer, Russell McKenna, Niklas Kreifels and Wolf Fichtner

Energy, 2015, vol. 84, issue C, 563-574

Abstract: Currently, most PV (photovoltaic) modules are aligned in a way that maximizes annual yields. With an increasing number of PV installations, this leads to significant power peaks and could threaten energy policy objectives. Apparently sub-optimal inclinations and azimuth angles of PV plants on building roofs could counteract such tendencies by achieving significant temporal shifts in the electricity production. This paper addresses the potential of these counter-measures by evaluating the optimal regional mix of wind and PV installations with different mounting configurations in order to locally generate the annual electricity demand. It does so by adhering to three distinctive energy policy goals: economic efficiency, environmental sustainability and security of supply. The hourly yields of wind parks and nine PV orientations are simulated for four representative NUTS3-regions in Germany. These profiles are combined with regional electricity demand profiles and fed into an optimisation model. As a result, the optimal installed capacity for PV for every possible configuration – determined by inclination and azimuth angles – and the optimal installed capacity of wind power are obtained. The results indicate that the optimal mix differs significantly for each of the chosen goals, depending on regional conditions, but also shows a high transferability of general statements.

Keywords: Optimisation; Energy-political objectives; PV orientation; Wind turbines; Autarky; Regional context (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215003448
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:84:y:2015:i:c:p:563-574

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.03.050

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 ().