Conditions and Requirements for the Technical Feasibility of a Power System with a High Share of Renewables in France Towards 2050 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY
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Conditions and Requirements for the Technical Feasibility of a Power System with a High Share of Renewables in France Towards 2050 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY The IEA examines the IEA member IEA association full spectrum countries: countries: of energy issues including oil, gas and Australia Brazil coal supply and Austria China demand, renewable Belgium India energy technologies, electricity markets, Canada Indonesia energy efficiency, Czech Republic Morocco access to energy, Denmark Singapore demand side Estonia South Africa management and Finland Thailand much more. Through France its work, the IEA Germany advocates policies that Greece will enhance the Hungary reliability, affordability Ireland and sustainability of Italy energy in its 30 member countries, Japan 8 association countries Korea and beyond. 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International Energy Agency Website: www.iea.org Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050 Abstract Abstract This report, commissioned by France’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition and written jointly by the International Energy Agency and RTE, the French Transmission System Operator, examines the conditions and requirements needed to assess the technical feasibility of scenarios with very high shares of variable renewable energy in France’s power system. The report looks into trends for energy demand and renewable resource availability in the 2020 National Low-Carbon Strategy (Stratégie nationale bas-carbone, or SNBC). Several scenarios of high shares of renewables are examined: mainly based on onshore wind, mainly based on offshore wind expansion and mainly based on distributed PV. Building on these scenarios, the report looks at changes in the system’s flexibility needs and how the range from short-term to long- term flexibility can be satisfied by new technologies such as flexible charging of electrified transport, battery storage, demand-side flexibility and sector coupling. The report then looks to essential questions on electricity security, i.e. addressing the issue of keeping system stability in the context of decreasing system inertia, ensuring adequacy of the system and the sizing available reserves under a scenario of large shares of variable renewables. Finally, the report evaluates the VRE integration capacity of the existing French transmission network, as well as necessary modifications and expansion beyond 2035. The recommendations and findings of this report form the basis for further detailed technical and economic assessments that are to be carried out by RTE in 2021. PAGE | 3 IEA. All rights reserved. Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050 Abstract PAGE | 4 IEA. All rights reserved. Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements, contributors and credits The report “Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050” was jointly prepared by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the French Transmission System Operator RTE at request of France’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition. It includes findings from modelling carried out by RTE, lessons from international experiences prepared by the IEA and insights from the webinar “Technical secure integration of large shares of converter based power sources”, organised by the IEA on 25 March 2020. The report was carried out under the guidance of Thomas Veyrenc, Executive Director for Strategy, Planning and Evaluation at RTE and Paolo Frankl, Head of the IEA Renewable Energy Division. Vincent Rious, Head of the Economic studies unit at RTE, coordinated RTE’s contributions, whose core team included Olivier Houvenagel, Thibault Prévost, Guillaume Denis, Mathilde Françon, Julien Peret, Marc Le-Du, Frédéric Bienvenu, Julien Callec François Dispot, Etienne Meyruey, Apolline Prada, Joris Chmielewski, Florent Xavier, Jérôme Pigat, Olivier Beck and Nicolas Kitten. Pierre Goutierre, Thomas Lassaigne, Cédric Léonard, Marion Li, Isabelle Bailleul and Benjamin Ricaud contributed to earlier phases of the project. Enrique Gutierrez, from the IEA’s Renewable Integration and Secure Electricity (RISE) unit coordinated the IEA’s input, with contributions from Alejandro Hernandez, Head of RISE Unit. Former IEA System of Integration of Renewables Heads of Unit Edwin Haesen , Simon Müller, and former Senior Technology Analyst at the Renewable Energy Division (RED) Cedric Philibert contributed to earlier phases of the project. Sophia Rodriguez (RED), Szilvia Doczi, Laura Fraass, Aron Zuiker, and Kaja Jankowska from RISE provided additional contributions. Additional IEA input on long-term energy scenarios was provided by Uwe Remme from the Energy Supply Unit and Araceli Fernandez-Pales from the Energy Demand Technology Unit in the Energy Technology Policy Division. Keisuke Sadamori, Director of Energy Markets and Security at the IEA and Laszlo Varro, Chief Economist provided comments and senior guidance. Peter Fraser, Head of Division Gas, Coal and Power, Brian Motherway, Head of Energy Efficiency Division, Brent Wanner, lead power sector modeller from the IEA Energy Modelling Office provided valuable feedback on the report and key messages. The authors would like to specially thank the expert panellists from the webinar “Technical secure integration of large shares of converter based power sources” for PAGE | 5 IEA. All rights reserved. Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050 Acknowledgements their input: Pappiya Dattaray and Eammon Lannoye from EPRI, Nilesh Modi and Babak Bradrazeh from AEMO; Julia Matevosyan from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT); Andreas Menze and Mario Ndreko (TenneT); Ioannis Theologitis (ENTSO-E); Xavier Guillaud (Ecole Centrale de Lille); Agusti Egea Alvarez ( University of Strathclyde); Eckhard Quitmann (Enercon); and Aftanasios Krontitis (ABB). PAGE | 6 IEA. All rights reserved. Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050 Table of contents Table of contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 27 Chapter 2. Renewable energy scenarios in France’s National Low-Carbon Strategy ........... 29 Key messages ......................................................................................................................... 29 The low-carbon strategy relies on massive integration of decarbonised energy sources and reduction of energy consumption ................................................................................. 30 The French Low-Carbon Strategy assumes an increase in electricity consumption ........ 32 From energy projections to a detailed analysis including hour-by-hour assessment of security of supply ................................................................................................................... 37 Scenarios with high shares of renewables will rely mainly on wind and solar PV ............. 38 The National Low-Carbon Strategy is largely consistent with IEA low-carbon scenarios.. 41 References .............................................................................................................................. 46 Chapter 3. Resources for power system flexibility: International experiences and the French context ..................................................................................................................................... 47 Key messages ......................................................................................................................... 47 Challenges of integrating large shares of renewables ........................................................ 48 Flexibility resources ................................................................................................................. 51 Interconnections, electricity consumption and mix at the European level ....................... 66 References .............................................................................................................................. 69 Chapter 4. Ensuring grid stability in systems with high shares of variable renewables ........ 71 Key messages: ......................................................................................................................... 71 The historical role of the inertia of synchronous rotating machines for electrical