Flexibility requirements of renewable energy based electricity systems – a review of research results and methodologies

Hendrik Kondziella and Thomas Bruckner

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2016, vol. 53, issue C, 10-22

Abstract: It is expected that an energy system faces increasing flexibility requirements in order to cope with increasing contributions from variable renewable energy sources (VRE). In general, the instant balance of temporal and spatial inequalities of the electricity system can be achieved by many compensating measures. However, a thorough and precise quantification of the flexibility demand of a VRE based energy system turns out to be a complex task. So far, literature on energy economics and engineering has provided analyses concerning various aspects of the system requirements for flexibility. Accordingly, this review paper primarily aims to categorize the scientific approaches that have been used in “flexibility demand” studies. In this context, we classify exemplary study results from the German and European energy systems into technical, economic, and market potential categories to enhance their comparability. Moreover, we conduct a methodological evaluation of the literature findings to determine further research requirements. Against this background we also discuss a conceptual framework to quantify the market potential of flexible technologies.

Keywords: Energy system; Renewable energy sources; Variability; Flexibility demand; Energy storage; Potential category (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (106)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115008643
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:rensus:v:53:y:2016:i:c:p:10-22

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.07.199

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

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