Electricity supply in Europe power system with high penetration of wind power and solar PV under the North Atlantic Oscillation

Abstract

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is an atmospheric circulation that dominates the climate variation over west-north Europe. It alters the pressure difference between the north and south air mass over the Atlantic Ocean, by either reinforcing or relieving the gap, so that the westwards storm track which drifts to Europe may shift north or south in winter. As a result, wind and surface solar irradiation over west Europe are redistributed. For intensively mitigating CO2 emission, vast integration of wind power and solar PV in the power system for electricity supply has been set on agenda. These weather-dependent and undispatchable generators are sensitive to climate variations. An in-depth understanding of the impact of the large-scale climate variation, i.e. the NAO, on the power system with high penetration of wind power and solar PV is pivotal for the low-carbon transition of the power system. This paper studied the impact of NAO on west Europe power system with the vast capacity installation of wind turbines and solar panels. By using the climate model data simulated from NAO scenario, the production profile of wind power and solar PV were estimated, which is then input into a model of the power system to simulate the system performances by the PLEXOS, the integrated energy modeling platform. Results show that the climate shift from negative NAO to positive NAO mainly enhances the system electricity production of wind power with 89.2 TWh in winter. Thermal generators are then replaced by the wind turbine. With more electricity supplied by wind power, the carbon emission, the generation cost and the electricity price in wintertime decline as much as 24.7 million tons, 5.6 €/MWh and 9.1 €/MWh respectively. Regions within the power system become more local sustained and the transmission load burden is relieved. The consequence of NAO shift on the power system is more profound with higher penetration of wind power. In addition, regions in the north have their wind production increased while south regions experience shrink of their wind power outputs.