Time-scale reconciliation to shed light on the plausibility of long-term low carbon pathways : power system issues

We propose to present fruitful results that have been achieved with the use of a bottom-up long-term investment planning model (from the MARKAL-TIMES family of models) in order to deal with the challenges of deploying electrical systems that integrate technologies linked to renewable energies and smart grids. These developments have been conducted to reconcile and connect different time-scales in order to identify long-term strategies for power systems relevant to climate-related constraints and technical conditions required for operating systems (i.e. power supply reliability, availability and stability, managing intermittent electricity production sources). The reconciliation of long-term approaches employed in prospective exercises at the different time-scales involves examining the “inertia” of systems, e.g. the composition of current and future mixes, versus the “instantaneousness” of usage (e.g. mobility using electric vehicles or smart grid solutions, energy efficiency).