Economic assessment of high renewable energy penetration scenario in 2030 on the interconnected Irish power system

The Irish Government has set very ambitious targets for the penetration of renewables into the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM), aiming for 40% electricity generation by 2020. This renewable share is expected to increase further in the I-SEM, British Electricity Trading and Transmission Arrangements (BETTA) and French electricity market by 2030. This research presents a case study testing the various levels of renewable energy integration in the three regions and assessed the economic impacts and benefits at elevated renewables penetration. To measure the economic and environmental sustainability, four indicators, i.e. annual wholesale system marginal prices (SMPs), total generation costs, total generation net revenues and CO2 emissions were selected. The results showed that the I-SEM 2030 wholesale electricity market pricing would range from (sic)101.26/MWh to (sic)50.77/MWh with the increase of renewable integration from 44% to 75%. In the BETTA and French market, the addition of the renewable generation contributes to reductions to SMPs by 51.10% and 51.61% at most, respectively. It was also found that these enhanced renewable targets for 2030 could lower consumers' electricity bills and expand the total social welfare.