Fluctuating renewables in a long-term climate change mitigation strategy

Integrated Assessment models, widely applied in climate change mitigation research, show that renewable energy sources (RES) play an important role in the decarbonization of the electricity sector. However, the representation of relevant technologies in those models is highly stylized, thereby omitting important information about the variability of electricity demand and renewables supply. We present a power system model combining long time scales of climate change mitigation and power system investments with short-term fluctuations of RES. Investigating the influence of increasingly high temporal resolution on the optimal technology mix yields two major findings: the amount of flexible natural gas technologies for electricity generation rises while the share of wind energy only depends on climate policy constraints. Furthermore, overall power system costs increase as temporal resolution is refined in the model, while mitigation costs remain unaffected.

► Combining long time scales of climate change mitigation with short-term fluctuations. ► Representing variability of renewables and demand using increasing temporal resolution. ► Intertemporal optimization of investments and power system operation under variability. ► Amount of natural gas increases with temporal resolution; renewables les affected. ► Power system costs increase; mitigation costs experience little change.