Title:	Photovoltaics with Horizontal Tracking and Delta Configuration in a Decarbonized European Energy System
Author(s):	M. Victoria
Topic:	Finance, Markets and Policies
Subtopic:	Policies and Scenarios for Renewables, Societal and Global Challenges
Event:	37th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition
Session:	7DO.9.3
ISBN:	3-936338-73-6
Price:	0,00 EUR
Document(s):	presentation

Abstract/Summary:

---

The European Union is committed to decreasing CO2 emissions by 40% in 2030, relative to 1990 levels. A more ambitious target of -55% is supported by the European Parliament and mentioned by the Commission in the re- cent announcement of a European Green Deal. This aligns with the scientic consensus claiming that signicant and rapid reductions are needed to keep our chances of main- taining temperature rise below 1.5C. Photovoltaics (PV) is expected to play a signicant role in the short-term de- carbonization of Europe. For instance, between 150 and 240 GW of solar PV are forecast for Europe in 2030 accord- ing to the Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) [1] by ENTSOE, and even higher solar penetration is ex- pected at a global scale [2{4]. The maximum penetration of PV in the European power system does not seem to be limited by its cost but by the necessity to include short-term storage in the system when large PV capacities are installed [5, 6]. In the last EU PVSEC, we presented the results of a cost-optimized sector-coupled, networked model for the European energy system. We found that, when CO2 emissions are restricted to 5% of 1990 levels, the optimal conguration includes 825 GW of solar PV that supplies 33% of the electricity de- mand in Europe [6]. Sensitivity analyses showed that the optimal penetration of PV is inuenced not only by the cost assumptions for that technology but also by those of batteries [6]. We also found that expanding interconnec- tion capacities is benecial for wind integration, but not so much for solar integration. The reason behind is that the high correlation among solar generation in dierent countries hinders the benet of this balancing strategy [6]. Recently, the analysis of near-optimal solutions has shown that solutions whose cost is slightly higher than the opti- mum can signicantly dier in their conguration [7]. This result opens the door to consider near-optimal congura- tions that include a higher share of solar PV and benet from additional advantages such as more local electricity generation, less social-acceptance issues, a higher number of created jobs, etc.