Global potential of wind and solar energy with physical and Energy Return on Investment (EROI) constraints; application at the European level (EU 28 countries)

Dupont, Elise;Jeanmart, Hervé
(2019) ECOS 2019 - 32nd International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Syste — Location: Wrocław, Poland (23.June.2019)

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The transition to renewable energies means a shift from centralised applications burning high energy density fuels, to decentralised applications fuelled by intermittent sources (wind and solar radiation). The amount of energy striking the earth's surface in one hour is higher than the global annual society’s needs, but the fraction of this incoming solar radiation that can sustainably be harvested is greatly constrained by physical, technical and geographical limitations. We argue that the best way to take into account these limitations and to remove any economic bias is to look at the potential with the point of view of net energy analysis. Net energy is the amount of energy that remains after removing from the energy produced by a facility all the energy inputs that were needed, directly or indirectly, during the construction, operation and decommissioning. In that field, a commonly used indicator to compare different energy sources is the Energy Return on Investment (EROI), the ratio between the energy produced and the energy invested. It has been shown that renewable energies have lower EROIs than traditionnal fossil fuels, due to their high capital intensity. On top of that, due to the uneven spatial distribution of the resources, their EROIs will also certainly decrease with their spatial expansion. We propose a grid cell approach to estimate the evolution of the EROI of wind and solar energy with increasing production. On a spatial discretisation, we assess for each grid cell the potential of wind and solar energy, taking into account geographical and technical constraints. Then, based on a detailed life-cycle-analysis, the energy inputs are estimated. By classifying the sites by decreasing EROI we obtain a function for the decrease in EROI with annual production. In this paper, we apply this methodology to assess an upper limit for the wind and solar energy potential at the European level and the associated EROI. Under the light of these results, we discuss the feasibility of 100% renewable energy scenarios for Europe.
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Dupont, E., & Jeanmart, H. (2019). Global potential of wind and solar energy with physical and Energy Return on Investment (EROI) constraints; application at the European level (EU 28 countries). ECOS 2019 - 32nd International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Syste, Wrocław, Poland. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/169502