Evaluating the possibility of 100% dependency on Renewable energy Generation Technologies in Scotland

This report evaluates the possibility of Scotland achieving 100% dependency on renewable energy generation technologies by 2020. It explores the renewable energy generation potential and existing demand, cost of building PHS storages, scenario building using EnergyPlan software, and critical analysis of the derived scenario.

HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY
School of Engineering and Physical Sciences
B51GK Demand Management & Energy Storage
Title: Evaluating the possibility of 100% dependency on Renewable energy Generation Technologies in
Scotland
Author: YXZ
Registration number:
Campus:
4th April 2018

Declaration of authorship
I, …………………………………………………… (Course ID)
Do hereby confirm that the report hereinafter is my own work and no part of it has been copied from anywhere; as a result, the information presented has been
suitably referenced. This report entails an evaluation of the renewable energy capacities in lieu of the existing generation sources and this is part of my assessment for
course B51GK Demand Management & Energy

1. INTRODUCTION
The government of Scotland set ambitious targets of transforming the renewable energy markets and boosting the country’s power efficiency [6, 7, and 15]. This is in line with
the global targets of carbon emissions following the international ratification of the climate change pact in Paris 2016. The fossil fuels have greatly contributed to the global
menace of climate change as levels of carbon emissions due to these archaic sources have resulted into the damaging of the ozone layer; consequently, resulting into
unpredictable climatic patterns and further deterioration of the existing natural forms of life[6] . From the projections, as will be illustrated in the report, it can be noted that
the Scottish government targets to meet the escalating demand of energy by 100% by the year 2020. It will be assumed therefore, that in this report, the set targets are
attainable. However, there is need to conduct a thorough evaluation of the efficiency of the existing energy sources and correlate with the demand and supply situation all
over the country. In a nutshell, the government of Scotland has set a target of 16 GW of power to be generated from the various listed sources; it should be noted that the
renewable energy will greatly be integrated so as to boost the capacity, efficiency and contribute to sustainable levels of energy generation such that there will be zero carbon
footprints[15]. This would actually require great innovation from the stakeholders so as to improve the energy situation in Scotland and consequently a clear road map will be
generated on the exactness of attaining the set target[16]. The aim is to uncover the energy generation performances as at 2017 and use the report to further plan on the
achievements motives.

1. RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION POTENTIAL AND EXISTING DEMAND
In this section, we explore the various renewable sources of energy as a solution to bridge the existing gap between demand and supply of electricity in Scotland.
Part 2.1: Closing the Energy Supply Gap using 100% Renewable Energy Sources
Based on an upscale of the current generation mix for renewable technologies (see table 1) and the current typical electricity demand, the amount of energy storage capacity
that Scotland would need to satisfy all its electricity needs [8]with renewable generation is hereby provided:
Table 1: Installed Capacities of the Renewable Energy sources
INSTALLED CAPACITIES AND PROJECTED AS AT 2016 (MW)
YEAR Hydro Wind
Waves&Tid
al Solar PV
Landfill
gas
Sewage
gas
Other
Biofuels Total
2016 1639 5769 9.7 217.41 121.3 7.9 2743.9
10508.2
1
%age of Renewable Mix 19.7 75.61 0.17 2.97 1.75 0.163 3.765
Projected mix % 19.7 75.61 0.17 2.97 1.75 0.163 3.765
Upscaled amount 322.883
4361.94
1 0.01649
6.45707
7 2.12275 0.012877 103.307835
projected capacity for
2020
1961.88
3
10130.9
4 9.71649
223.867
1
123.4227
5 7.912877
2847.20783
5
15304.9
5

Figure 1: Fluctuating Daily electricity Demand and supply

Part 2. 2: Cost of Building PHS storages for all the required electricity
In this case, we consider two hydropower stations currently operational in Scotland. At the moment, there are only stations operational namely: Ben Cruachan and Foyers[14].
(For details on the two schemes, please see Table 2).
In establishing how much it would cost to build all the required electricity storage using PHS only, the following approach is adopted:
Table 2: Current Generation Potential for the two stations
Storage
Demand(MW)
Storage capacity
(GWh)
Guachan 473 8.9
Foyers 381 5.9
Total 854 14.8
This can then be translated such that 100% of generation capacity is from renewable energy sources hence table 3 illustrates this[10].
Table 3: Total Required for 100% RE
Total Required for 100%
RE Storage Demand Storage Capacity
3620 2150
Balance 2860 1969
PHS provides a viable option for renewable energy sector in large scale generation[10,9]. However, to utterly depend on PHS as a single source would be catastrophic as this
would translate into huge capital investments to match the ever increasing energy demand in Scotland. This would then call upon other sources such as fuel cells which are
highly reliable so long as hydrogen can freely be supplied to the plant [10]

Table 4: Generated Energy
GENERATED ENERGY FOR THE YEAR 2016 (GWh)
YEAR Hydro Wind
Waves&Tida
l
Solar
PV
Landfill
gas
Sewage
gas
Other
Biofuels Total
2016
Generated at Q1 1961 4791 0.71 29 128 8 315 7232.71
Generated at Q2 1431 3031 0.69 78 129 7.5 334 5011.19
Generated at Q3 1027 2475 0.59 68 130 6.5 443 4150.09
Generated at Q4 1741 4139 0.61 23 129 6.7 346 6385.31

Year
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
-10000
-5000
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
Consumption (Mwe)
Year on change
Figure 2: Supply and Demand Fluctuations
Part 2.3 Scenario Building using the EnergyPlan software
In this case, the EnergyPlan software was used to build a scenario for an independent Scottish electricity grid where the requirements were such that: It had to be stable, cost
effective as possible and fulfils 100 % of the electricity demand using renewable technologies and storage (no interconnects) [25]

Figure 4: Annual projected Electricity demand for 2020

Figure 5: Projected electricity production for the year 2020
NB: for a full results of the scenario, check the attached text files “Final Results”
However, in the derived scenario, the results shows that Pump storage is too small to sustain the demand hence there will be need to upscale the capacity of PP.
In this scenario, it was assumed that the demand per year was 37.41GWh. However, the available capacity of renewable could not meet this demand hence it can be
concluded that for the above case, renewable as 100% energy generators can never satisfy the projected demanded by the year 2020.
Part 2.4: Critical Analysis of the Derived Scenario
From the above calculations and illustrations, it can be said that the renewable energy sector provides a promising future as generation capacities and efficiency of the
systems are concerned [11, 12,13]. However, as a long term measure, there would be need to greatly improve the scale of generation in renewable sector. This would
translate into huge amounts of investments to be injected in this sector so as to improve the efficiency and generation capacities [17, 18]. To state that 100% of generation of
electricity would come from purely renewable is the most ambitious target ever set and as a result, it will mean that the stakeholders in the industry would have to double

their efforts so as to meet these targets by 2020. However, for a stable power supply, at least in the near future, we will still need the thermal power plants as they are huge
investments that must still be harnessed till they are exhausted[14,4]. Otherwise, the journey towards attaining 100% renewable use will still be in motion and only through
reforms in energy policy, from research to consumer safeguards, can we achieve these targets [18,5]. There are still untapped potential sources that need further research to
boost the harnessing techniques [18, 14]. Such as areas, as can be seen from table 1, include wave tidal and land fill gas. Therefore, there will be need for stakeholders to
expand the territories in the search for more sustainable energy sources [3,1]. For instance, the electric car technology, if pursued further, could be a potential efficiency
boost in energy use hence drastic reduction in carbon footprints [1, 2]. However as pointed out by various authors, the gasoline powered vehicles are still here with us till the
electric car technology commercially matures.
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