Significance of Cogeneration for Germany's Future Energy Supply

The continuous expansion of renewable energy sources leads to changes in supply systems. More flexibility is necessary since the degree of dependency on volatile renewables increases. This new paradigm affects the runtime of conventional plants and a characteristic change of the residual load, which must be covered by controllable systems. State-of-the-art studies resolve the future flexibility challenge non-congruent because of their given viewing point. The contribution of this paper is an analysis on the sense of cogeneration plants as flexible supply option in Germany's urban energy systems. Results show that cogeneration operation is eligible to cover major fluctuations of the residual load and to avoid many issues, which arise from increasing decentral renewable power generation and relate to all sectors electricity, heat, gas, and mobility.