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By 2030, the projected decrease in domestic European gas production will result in a shortfall of 12% of the EU’s gas demand. In this work, two different strategies to cover this shortfall are investigated: Increased imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from different global sources versus increased deliveries of Russian pipeline gas via Nord Stream 2. A novel gas system model, which captures both the market behavior of gas traders and gas system operators, is developed and applied. The model is highly detailed, as it simulates all individual components of the Europe-wide gas transmission system with hourly resolution. Simulations show that Nord Stream 2 impacts the gas transit through Poland more severely (23% loss of transit flows compared to 2014) than the transit through Ukraine (13% loss). Completely cutting off Ukraine is found to be a detrimental strategy for Russia, because only 40% of Ukrainian transit can be re-routed via Nord Stream 2 over a short timeframe. Increased imports of LNG are found to require 17% of European gas pipelines to be bidirectional, which requires significant investments into the European gas infrastructure. Additionally, the penetration of LNG is found to be highly sensitive to the price of LNG, with LNG losing 50% market share when priced 20% more expensively than pipeline gas. Hence overall, the choice between Nord Stream 2 and LNG exposes Europe to either a) the political risk of being more dependent on Russia or b) the technical and financial risks of importing the globally traded commodity LNG.

In response to the Fukushima nuclear accident, Switzerland has targeted to phase out nuclear power by 2050. Two diametrically opposite pathways to accomplish Switzerland's nuclear phase-out are quantitatively investigated for the year 2035 using a novel high-resolution power systems simulation framework. The first pathway, “Island in Europe”, installs new natural gas power plants to ensure a self-sufficient Swiss energy system. The second pathway, “Battery of Europe”, increases Switzerland's engagement with central Europe with new pumped hydro storages and increased cross-border electricity trade of European renewable energy. The results show that the “Battery of Europe” scenario enables a threefold increase in financial surplus of cross-border electricity trade compared to the “Island in Europe” scenario. This surplus translates to 15–23% lower domestic Swiss electricity prices, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of the Swiss marketplace; however, Switzerland is then exposed to more technical and political engagement with its neighbours. Additionally, successful implementation of the “Battery of Europe” scenario requires reinforcing 5% of the Swiss transmission grid, which necessitates more streamlined legal processes for new transmission infrastructure. Along a different political dimension, electricity price reductions of up to 22% are possible if the targeted increase of efficiency in Switzerland's energy policy is accomplished.

High spatial and temporal resolution optimal power flow simulations of the 2013 and 2020 interconnected grid in Central Western and Eastern Europe regions are undertaken to assess the impact of an increased penetration of renewables on thermal power plants. In contrast to prior studies, the present work models each individual transmission line and power plant within the two regions. Furthermore, for conventional plants, electricity costs are determined with respect to fuel type, nameplate capacity, operating condition and geographic location; cycling costs are modeled as function of the recent operational history. For renewable power plants, costs and available power are determined using mesoscale weather simulations and hydrology models. Countrywide validation of the simulations shows that all renewable and most conventional power production is predicted with less than 10% error. It is shown that the increased penetration of renewables in 2020 will induce a 4–23% increase in the number of starts of conventional plants. The number of load ramps significantly increases by 63–181%, which underlines the necessity for equipment manufacturers and utilities to adapt to scenarios of high penetration of renewables. The increased cycling operation of coal plants is shown to depend strongly on the power plant’s location and is mainly observed in Germany and the Czech Republic. Austrian coal plants are cycled less because they supply more base load power to southern Germany, where several nuclear power plants will be phased out by 2020. Thus there is a need for more transmission capacity along Germany’s north–south corridor to transport renewable power from the windy regions of northern Germany to the demand centers in southern Germany.

The addition of stochastic renewable resources within modern electricity markets creates a need for more flexible generation assets and for appropriate mechanisms to ensure capacity adequacy. To assess both of these issues, more cross-platform analysis is needed that can evaluate short-term reliability concerns, medium-term dispatch and price concerns, and long-term capacity expansion and market design concerns. We present an integrated modeling framework that combines a long-term investment model, a robust dispatch model of the energy market, a detailed AC network model, a novel quantification for reserves, and a rigorous evaluation of renewable energy resource potentials. We apply the framework to a business-as-usual reference case simulating the phase-out of nuclear capacity in Switzerland and a case with renewable generation targets for Switzerland. We find that the nuclear phase-out leads to a strong increase in Swiss imports. In contrast, additional renewable targets lead to a decrease of these imports. In both cases, the Swiss cross-border lines are found to be the most critical network bottlenecks and in both future cases the increased reliance on imports worsens the severity of these bottlenecks. However, the network and security assessments show no significant challenges associated with a faster and stronger renewable increase in Switzerland., Energy Strategy Reviews, 25

The EU target of 45% renewable electricity by 2030 requires additional capacities of wind and solar power across Europe. In this work, a novel high-resolution multi-country power systems model, which comprises full-year hourly chronological AC optimal power flow simulations, is applied within a multi-objective optimization framework. This framework is applied to determine the optimal portfolio of wind and solar capacities across Europe, which achieves the EU target while minimizing curtailment, residual load fluctuations and investment costs. The optimal portfolio comprises new wind and solar capacities of 221 GW and 82 GW respectively; the geographic locations of the new capacities are identified. To accommodate these additional capacities, 4% of central European transmission lines require reinforcement. The presented approach of simultaneously optimizing the renewable portfolios across multiple countries reduces curtailment, residual load variability and electricity prices by best utilizing each country's renewable resources and the intrinsic balancing effects of large-scale wind power.

Several European countries have launched programs to increase the penetration of battery electric vehicles. In this work, a novel electric vehicle charging model is used in a high spatial and temporal resolution optimal power flow simulation framework to assess the impacts of increased penetration of electric vehicles on the central European power system. In 2030, electric vehicles are found to have only a moderate impact on reducing the curtailment of wind and solar power. The energy to charge the electric vehicles comes mainly from conventional power plants (coal and gas), whereas solar and wind power plants each provide only 4%. Consequently, the increased penetration of electric vehicles is found to result in an increase in CO2 emissions of up to 25% compared to the same number of gasoline vehicles.

As the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme has, up to date, had little impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions in Europe, direct carbon taxes have been proposed. In this work, high spatial and temporal resolution optimal power flow simulations are conducted to assess the impact of carbon taxes on the inter-connected power system in central Europe. As both individual transmission lines and individual power plants are modeled, this work provides new insights into effects within the European power market. A carbon price of 40 €/tCO2 or more is shown to be necessary in 2030 to achieve the EU emissions targets. This tax burden is borne mainly by Poland and the Czech Republic, who lose more than 2bn € annually in power exports. Consumers in Switzerland face the highest increases in electricity prices, despite consuming very carbon-friendly electricity.

The operation of conventional power plants in the 2030 high-renewable energy system of central Europe with high penetration of renewables is simulated in this work. Novel insights are gained in this work, since the generation, transmission and demand models have high geographic resolution, down to scale of individual units, with hourly temporal resolution. It is shown that the increases in the partload efficiency that optimize gas power plants’ financial performance in 2030 are highly dependent on the variability in power production of renewable power plants that are in close proximity to the gas power plants. While coal power plants are also cycled more, an increased baseload efficiency is more beneficial for their financial viability. Thus, there is a need for OEMs to offer a wide range of technology solutions to cover all customers’ needs in electricity markets with high penetrations of renewables. Therefore there is an increased investment risk for OEMs as they strive to match their customers’ future needs., Journal of the Global Power and Propulsion Society, 1