Least-cost 100% renewable electricity scenarios

Renewable energy sources (RES) are becoming the main players for the sustainability of the planet and achieving a 100% RES energy system has been attested as a good strategy to go forward in many countries. This target however defies the system to integrate highly variable RES in a system that does not allow for shortage on the energy supply. This work presents a possible 100% RES scenario for an electricity system close to the Portuguese estimating and analysing the economic and technical impacts. The sensitivity of the results to aspects related to RES availability, electricity demand, peak load and interconnection capacity for electricity trading were also analysed. The results highlighted the excess of electricity produced in 100% RES systems and the importance of including interconnection capacity to contribute to overcome this problem.The authors wish to acknowledge the support of ALGORITMI research Centre at University of Minho. This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-OI-0145- FEDER-007043 and FCT - Funda<;iio para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/I00319/2013.