Estimation of the potential of Power-to-Power systems in remote islands in Norway

Rising concern about climate change and keen awareness on effect of GHG emissions make it clear that energy transition towards low-carbon systems has to be the focus of future energy scenarios. Energy efficiency, electrification of consumptions, energy production from renewables and CCS represent the fundamental pillars of the radical transformation of energy sector. However, in order to deeply exploit variable renewable energy sources and to ensure their integration in the electric system, energy storage strategies have to be developed: hydrogen represents indeed one of the most promising solutions. Green hydrogen production allows to store large amount of renewable power surplus by means of an energy carrier that can be converted again into electricity or used in hard-to-abate sectors, namely those fields in which decarbonization is difficult to achieve. Moreover, energy production from renewables and hydrogen storage in the so-called P2P systems is a viable strategy in remote areas and islands, in which energy demand is usually met by diesel generators or costly extension of national grid infrastructure. In this framework, REMOTE EU-project aims to assess the techno-economic feasibility of P2P systems in four demonstration sites in Europe, namely two islands (in Italy and Norway) and two remote areas (in Italy and Greece). The present thesis work, that is developed as part of REMOTE project, aims to evaluate the potential of Power-to-Power systems in Norwegian islands. The analysis consists in the creation of a database which contains information of 138 islands; in particular, data related to population, geographical location, services provided on the island and seacable connection (if present) are included. The 138 islands are grouped into 12 homogeneous categories on the basis of population and services; for each of them a single island, that is representative of the entire group, is selected and analysed in detail. The electric load of the 12 selected islands is estimated taking into account properly the characteristics of Norwegian buildings and the peculiarities of the location under investigation: in order to evaluate the residential electric load, a model based on specific literature data is developed while non-residential load profile is obtained from an Excel tool directly provided by a Norwegian research group. Energy production from renewables is evaluated by means of a MATLAB code that runs on meteorological data extracted from PVGIS and provides hourly values of power produced by wind and PV systems. Sizing procedure is performed by using a techno-economic optimization tool that is able to determine components sizes and to evaluate the LCOE of the proposed solution. LCOE of P2P system is compared with that of three alternative scenarios: only-battery involving the installation of PV-wind plant with battery storage, seacable that includes the substitution of existing connection or the new seacable laying and diesel in which energy demand is covered by diesel generators. LCOE of P2P system always results lower than that of only-battery and diesel scenarios, while the comparison with seacable strictly depends on cable length and energy consumption. In addition, yearly fuel consumption and related CO2 emissions are evaluated for the 12 selected islands; these outcomes are extrapolated for the 138 included in the database in order to assess on national scale the environmental benefits arising from P2P systems installation.