Costs of regional equity and autarky in a renewable European power system

Abstract

The spatial distribution of infrastructure plays a key role in shaping the levels of social acceptance in future energy systems. Here, I evaluate the cost impact and changes in the system composition when development of infrastructure is more evenly shared among countries and regions in a fully renewable European power system. I deliberately deviate from the resource-induced cost optimum towards more equitable and self-sufficient solutions in terms of power generation. The analysis employs the open optimization model PyPSA-Eur. I show that purely cost-optimal solutions lead to very inhomogeneous distributions of capacities, but more uniform expansion plans can be achieved on a national level at little additional expense below 4%. However, completely autarkic solutions, without power transmission, appear much more costly across a variety of technology cost assumptions.

Keywords

• Energy system modelling
• Distributional equity
• Autarky
• Renewables
• Decentralised systems