Electricity grid with strong genes

12-09-2015 - The BINE Projektinfo brochure 'Electricity grid with strong genes' describes the prior project GENESYS. The goal was to design a cost-optimal grid from scratch. To achieve this, the developers had stipulated the European interconnected network as being supplied by renewables only. The program autonomously optimised distribution technologies, grid expansion and storage systems.

The graphic shows an overview of the baseline scenario in the project GENESYS. | Photo: ISEA RWTH Aachen, editing by BINE Information Service

The task of the electricity grid is clear: supplying energy to the consumers. It usually does this quite unobtrusively. Nevertheless, it is an important and difficult task to design the entire system so that it can exactly provide every consumer with the requested amount of energy at any time. No more and no less. This task becomes more difficult when many fluctuating generators power the grid.

While the focus of the research project GENESYS2 was on the expansion of the existing grid, the developers of the previous project focused on the approach of creating a grid from scratch: based on renewable energy sources and as low-cost as possible. BINE Information Service describes the project in the BINE Projektinfo brochure 15/2015, which is available for download as a PDF file.

How could an optimal power grid in Europe look like? When considered in isolation, – i.e. in terms of a theoretical reconstruction – this question can be answered relatively easily. GENESYS2 is considering, however, how the existing power grid can be optimally expanded.