On the global and regional potential of renewable energy sources

Abstract

In this thesis, the central research question is: what can be the contribution of renewable energy sources to the present and future world and regional energy supply system. The focus is on wind, solar PV and biomass energy (energy crops) for electricity generation. For the assessment of the economic potential, we construct cost-supply curves. As the economic potential also depends on the way renewables are integrated in the electricity system, we also explore the overall costs of wind electricity with increasing penetration levels of the installed wind capacity into the system. The potentials of solar, wind and biomass electricity are analysed at a global and regional level, for seventeen world-regions similar as used in the IMAGE 2.2 model to make future use of the results for scenario analysis with the IMAGE 2.2 model possible. The IMAGE 2.2 model (Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment) is developed at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)). This model is one of those used for the construction and evaluation of SRES energy scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In summary, we can conclude that the renewable electricity sources studied in this thesis have a potential to generate several times more electricity than the present electricity demand at costs in the range of present electricity costs. Solar PV has the most significant technical potential, but is at present not available at competitive costs in grid connected options. In the longer term, costs of solar PV may come down at cost levels comparable to conventional electricity, especially in sunny areas. The costs depend in the case of biomass electricity strongly on the technological development of the agricultural sector, on the labour wages, the capital-labour ratio and the land rental costs. Costs of wind electricity are already nearly competitive and the wind electricity sector has increased considerably the last decades. However, to what extent the overall costs of wind electricity can decrease further with increasing penetration levels, depends amongst others on the available storage capacity and interconnection of the system. The spatially explicit calculations done in this study provide interesting new insights concerning the potential of renewable energy sources. This thesis considers on a grid-cell level, next to climatic characteristics, also characteristics of land-use and soil quality, when estimating the future potential of renewables. In particular for the assessment of the future potential of biomass energy, the demand for agricultural land is of high importance as these are expected to be planted at abandoned agricultural land. Land area required to generate the wind electricity potential depends on social factors, but default values in this thesis indicate that to generate 6 times the present electricity production about 1.1 Gha is needed, about the size of China. To generate about 23 times the present electricity production with solar PV, an area of 0.23 Gha is needed, about 20% of China. To generate biomass derived electricity equal to 5 times the present electricity production, in the A1 scenario (highest potential) at abandoned agricultural area, about 1.3 Gha is needed, about 120% of the area of China.