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We consider a simplified model of a future European electricity network with a high share of renewable generation. In a cost optimal design of such a system, most of the renewable generation capacity is placed at locations with favorable weather conditions, that is for instance onshore wind in countries bordering the North Sea and solar PV in South European countries. Countries with less favorable renewable generation conditions benefit from this capacity by importing the respective electricity as power flows through the transmission grid. Using flow tracing techniques, which are related to directed diffusion processes on networks, we disentangle the emerging pattern of imports and exports and assign shares of the distributed generation capacity in the European system to the countries which actually make use of them. This procedures yields nodal levelized costs, which incorporate both internal and external generation as well as transmission costs associated with the electricity consumption in a country. Compared to a scenario without transmission, these nodal levelized costs are reduced by about 15% and represent the benefit of cooperation.

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Martin Greiner, Aarhus University
Seminar room of the Institute of Physics II
Contact: Dirk Witthaut