A Future German Energy System with a Dominating Contribution from Renewable Energies: A Holistic Model Based on Hourly Simulation

A clear consensus exists in German society that it is necessary to achieve ambitious greenhouse-gas emission reduction targets and that renewable energies have to play a dominant role in the future German energy-supply system. However, many questions are still under discussion, for instance about the relevance of the different technologies such as photovoltaic systems or wind energy converters installed offshore in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Concerns are often expressed regarding the cost of a future energy system mainly based on renewable energies. To be able to address the raised issues on a scientifically sound basis we have set up a new simulation model REMod-D (Renewable Energy Model-Deutschland) that models a possible future German energy system for all sectors, including all renewable energy converters, storage components, secondary energy converters, and loads for an entire year based upon an hourly simulation. Moreover, the model includes retrofitting of buildings for energy efficiency as a measure to reduce the future heat loads of the building sector. A generic optimizer is applied to identify system compositions with minimal overall annual cost. After a short introduction about the modeling approach, the results of parameter studies are presented.