Analysis of the temporal and geographical distribution of the electricity by res generation in the spanish power system

Abstract

The energy industry is undergoing through major changes and challenges. The European Union has set as one of its main goals to achieve a complete decarbonization of the economy by. the year 2050. Nevertheless, this de-carbonization must be done gradually in different stages. These stages are what is known as horizons. The 2020 horizon is a set of binding legislation that basically tries to ensure that the European Union will meet its needs for the year 2020. The package sets three key targets: • 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (from the 1990 level) • 20% of the EU energy must come from renewable sources by 2020. • 20% of improvement in energy efficiency. The target of the European Union is that the total amount of energy consumed over a year must come from renewable sources. Currently in Spain the total amount coming from renewable sources in a year is around 15%. This amount considers different industries, like the transports, energy, residential, etc. Being other industries more static in the energy transition most of the efforts are going to be done in the electric industry. This means, that the total amount of energy coming from renewable sources must increase in the next years to compensate the immobility of other industries. Besides this, in Spain there is not a significant number of potential idoneal locations for further hydro development. This means that no major investment is expected in dams or run of the river technologies. Besides this, the topography of the Spanish coast makes offshore wind farms not very appealing because of the high investments that it would be needed to develop large offshore facilities. This is due to the impossibility of founding the windmills directly on the ground of the sea. Moreover, thermosolar technologies are still expensive in their OPEX and CAPEX, and with the current evolution of solar PV this technology is not expected to grow. For the reasons mentioned above, onshore wind and photovoltaic solar, are the two most probable technologies to meet the obligations with the European Union and its targets for the year 2020. Red Eléctrica de España, the Spanish Transmission System Operator must develop the analysis of the integration of this new amount of energy coming from renewable sources. This needs to be done to assess whether the current grid will be able to handle this new amount of energy planned to enter the system. This integration must be done in the most secure, reliable and cheapest manner. There are several studies to assess the capacity of the planned grid H2015-H2020 to integrate this renewable energy. However, in this master’s thesis a new methodology will be proposed to study two different systems. These systems are those from the Canary Islands and the Peninsula. Summarizing, the purpose of this Master’s Thesis in to propose a new methodology to study the integration of the new amount of energy coming from renewable sources in two of the Spanish systems, the systems of the Peninsula and the Canary Islands.