Development of a Bottom-up Energy System Model with High-Temporal-Resolution Power Generation Sector and Scenario Analysis on CO₂ Reduction in Japan

Abstract

This paper develops a bottom-up energy system model, the power generation sector of which holds high temporal resolution so as to precisely analyze the massive deployment of intermittent renewables such as PV and wind, and to consider a number of technological features of power generation such as load following, minimum output and regular maintenance. The model has high inter-annual time resolution of ten minutes for 365 days, while most MARKAL/TIMES models have only two diurnal and three seasonal time-slices. The developed model is cast as linear programming model with ten million constraints and five million endogenous variables. Simulation analysis on CO₂ reduction toward 2030 in Japan reveals that decarbonization at power generation sector has a substantial role to mitigate the CO₂ emissions rather than improving energy efficiency at final energy demand sectors. Moreover, comparison analysis with low temporal resolution model finds out that the low resolution model would overestimate the optimal installation capacity of the PV systems because it cannot consider their intermittent feature well.