In order to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and increase energy security, the European Commission stimulates the deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES) towards 2050. In an electricity system with high shares of IRES implemented in the network, energy balancing like storage is needed to secure grid stability and smooth demand satisfaction. Pumped hydro storage (PHS) is at this moment the best option for large scale storage. Switzerland has strong ambitions to further develop their PHS sector and become the battery of Europe. In this research, the potential of the Swiss PSH plants is explored, whilst taking inflow into the upper reservoirs of the PHS plants into consideration. To simulate electricity imbalance, Germany is used as a case study. Germany already has a high penetration of IRES and has plans to increase installed IRES capacity. By using an energy planning model (PowerPlan), three future scenarios of the German electricity system were designed, each with a different set of IRES installed (solar, mixed and wind). Results show that the Swiss battery ambition offers most benefits to a wind-oriented scenario, reducing both shortages as well as surpluses. Water inflow in Swiss PHS-reservoirs is of minor importance when looking at security of supply, although it was shown that the solar-scenario profits more from inflow in terms of system stability. However, a potential conflict was observed in the solar-scenario between the need for electricity storage and the storage of natural inflow, resulting in more surpluses in the system when inflow was taken into account.

The large-scale integration of variable renewable energy sources into the energy system presents techno–economic challenges. Long–term energy system optimization models fail to adequately capture these challenges because of the low temporal resolution of these tools. This limitation has often been addressed either by direct improvements within the long–term models or by coupling them to higher resolution power system models. In this study, a combined approach is proposed to capitalize on the advantages and overcome the disadvantages of both methods. First, the temporal resolution of an energy model was enhanced by approximating the joint probability of the electricity load and the supply of intermittent sources. Second, the projected electricity mix was simulated by a power model at an hourly resolution. This framework was used to analyze mid–century deep decarbonization trajectories for Colombia, subject to future uncertainties of hydroclimatic variability and the development of the bioeconomy. The direct integration method is found to consistently reduce the overestimation of the feasible penetration of VRES. However, its impact is marginal because of its inability to assess the short–term operation of the power system in detail. When combined with the soft–linking method, the reliable operation of the power system is shown to incur an additional overhead of 12–17% investment in flexible generation capacity, 2–5% of the annual energy system cost, and a 15–27% shortfall in achieving the aspired GHG mitigation target. The results obtained by combining both methods are found to be closer to the global optimum solution than using either of these methods individually.

The dairy sector in the Netherlands aims for a 30% increase in efficiency and 30% carbon dioxide emission reduction compared to the reference year of 1990, and a 20% share of renewable energy, all by the year 2020. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can play a substantial role in achieving these aims. However, results from this study indicate that the AD system is not fully optimized in combination with farming practices regarding sustainability. Therefore, the Industrial Symbiosis concept, combined with energy and environmental system analysis, Life Cycle Analysis and modeling is used to optimize a farm-scale AD system on four indicators of sustainability (i.e., energy efficiency, carbon footprint, environmental impacts and costs). Implemented in a theoretical case, where a cooperation of farms share biomass feedstocks, a symbiotic AD system can significantly lower external energy consumption by 72 to 92%, carbon footprint by 71 to 91%, environmental impacts by 68 to 89%, and yearly expenditures by 56 to 66% compared to a reference cooperation. The largest reductions and economic gains can be achieved when a surplus of manure is available for upgrading into organic fertilizer to replace fossil fertilizers. Applying the aforementioned symbiotic concept to the Dutch farming sector can help to achieve the stated goals indicated by the Dutch agricultural sector for the year 2020.

With the integration of Intermitted Renewables Energy (I-RE) electricity production, capacity is shifting from central to decentral. So, the question is if it is also necessary to adjust the current load balancing system from a central to more decentral system. Therefore, an assessment is made on the overall effectiveness and costs of decentralized load balancing, using Flexible Renewable Energy (F-RE) in the shape of biogas, Demand Side Management (DSM), Power Curtailment (PC), and electricity Storage (ST) compared to increased grid capacity (GC). As a case, an average municipality in The Netherlands is supplied by 100% I-RE (wind and solar energy), which is dynamically modeled in the PowerPlan model using multiple scenarios including several combinations of balancing technologies. Results are expressed in yearly production mix, self-consumption, grid strain, Net Load Demand Signal, and added cost. Results indicate that in an optimized scenario, self-consumption of the municipality reaches a level of around 95%, the total hours per year production matches demand to over 90%, and overproduction can be curtailed without substantial losses lowering grid strain. In addition, the combination of balancing technologies also lowers the peak load to 60% of the current peak load in the municipality, thereby freeing up capacity for increased demand (e.g., electric heat pumps, electric cars) or additional I-RE production. The correct combination of F-RE and lowering I-RE production to 60%, ST, and PC are shown to be crucial. However, the direct use of DSM has proven ineffective without a larger flexible demand present in the municipality. In addition, the optimized scenario will require a substantial investment in installations and will increase the energy cost with 75% in the municipality (e.g., from 0.20€ to 0.35€ per kWh) compared to 50% (0.30€ per kWh) for GC. Within this context, solutions are also required on other levels of scale (e.g., on middle or high voltage side or meso and macro level) to ensure security of supply and/or to reduce overall costs.

The concern about global warming initiated ambitious CO₂ reduction goals in cities and regions in the Netherlands. This article describes a study of such a local initiative for the Northern Netherlands. The research aimed to develop CO₂ reduction scenarios for 2035 with national and international politics, and regional goals and opportunities being integrated. The scenarios were calculated using a bottom-up model. Four scenarios were developed with a defined goal of a 50% CO₂ reduction on the starting year (2000). The four scenarios were developed along two axes: centralized versus decentralized energy supply systems, and international climate policy versus a European-oriented energy policy. Primary energy consumption varied between 273 and 443PJ. Although 50% CO₂ reduction is possible in all scenarios, an enormous effort would be required to reach this goal. Depending on the scenario: an almost 50% reduction of the primary energy demand, the installation of 4 GW of offshore wind or the shift to a bio based economy is needed.