European Potential of Solar Technologies for Electricity Generation under Project Drawdown Framework

January 28, 2021

The emergency associated with the climate crisis demands immediate action. All economic sectors need to decarbonize in order to fight Climate Change. The Power Sector is strategic whether it be by its massive contribution in greenhouse gases emissions or for its intrinsic capacity to decarbonize other energy-consuming activities in a transversal way. The Energy Transition era will be filled with various complex and interlinked challenges but, at least on the technological domain, there are good solutions to build a future energy mix that can combine security of supply, environmental protection, and economic performance both for investors and consumers. Within the regionalization phase of Project Drawdown in Europe, this work collects several recent projections for the European Electricity Sector, from 2020 to 2050, in order to evaluate the contributions of solar solutions, more specifically, photovoltaic in centralized scale (U-PV), distributed photovoltaic (D-PV) and solar thermoelectricity (CSP), for both electricity generation and avoidance of GHG emissions, using the Drawdown model and methodology. Results suggest that European electricity sector of 2050 will produce (3,732 - 10,455 TWh/y), with U-PV adoption of (146 - 2,181 TWh/y), D-PV adoption of (93 - 901 TWh/y) and CSP adoption of (33 - 372 TWh/y). Together, solar based solutions can account for (7% to 33%) of total electricity generation in 2050. Over the next decades, they can avoid (1.32 - 26.31 Gt CO2e) GHG emissions and require investments in between (233 - 2.230 billion €).

Authors in the community:

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  L

  Luiz Fernando Teixeira da Silveira

  ist191662

Supervisors of this institution:

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  C

  Carlos Augusto Santos Silva

  ist23960

mechanical-engineering - Mechanical engineering

por - Portuguese

Instituto Superior Técnico