Modeling integration of renewable energy sources into Inland Norway energy system

Increasing attention to climate change causes and impacts, and the fact that the world owns limited energy resources, have tremendously increased the awareness of countries towards sustainable energy production and utilisation. The Norwegian energy system is characterized by large shares of hydropower generation and direct electric heating, causing low emissions. Direct electric heating imply low investments costs and is easy to install and maintain. However, it destroys a huge amount of exergy - as high as 90%, is rigid in operation and may also be a source of congestion, especially during peak load periods in winter. This makes the system vulnerable to low precipitation, impede the penetration of other potential renewable energy sources (RESs) and restrict competition between heat sources due to lack of system flexibility. Also, as in most other energy systems, the renewable energy share in transportation is very low. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate how the existing electricity-intensive system of Inland Norway could be transformed into a flexible energy system, with reduced use of fossil fuels in the transportation, through integration of various technologies and RESs. In light of this, both the value of wind energy for power supply security and the optimal use of bioenergy from techno-economic perspectives are investigated. The analyses are performed by calibrating and applying two different energy system analysis tools for Inland Norway. These tools are the EnergyPLAN model, developed at Aalborg University, and TIMES, developed at International Energy Agency