Integration Cost of Variable Renewable Resources to Power Systems – A Techno-economic Assessment in European Countries

In the last decade after setting decarbonization targets for the energy sector, European countries have witnessed dramatic growth of wind and solar power. Policy makers have often associated renewable integration in power systems with the need for additional back-up or storage which has a cost. The integration cost of Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) is estimated using a cost-based linear piecewise model of country-scale power systems in this analysis. The model is composed of a load, dispatchable power source, VRE, and flexibility option. These elements are then applied to six European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Spain). The model considers an increasing penetration of VRE to reduce the carbon footprint of the system. Initial findings suggest a few key parameters and variables are sufficient to compare the integration cost of increasing VRE shares in European countries electrical systems for studied countries. We find that the integration cost evolves linearly in three main steps depending on the load variation and the capacity factor. The first step shows negative or low integration cost, which slightly increases in the second step before steeply increasing in the last which is consistent with existing literature.