The North Seas Countries' Offshore Grid Initiative - Initial ... - Benelux

However, although PRIMES was used as a common basis, the governments each adapted it
with their own best view. The assumptions underpinning those national contributions
were quite different, resulting in different fuels emerging as dominant in different
countries This is to be expected, with different countries having different technology
preferences. This clearly has a significant impact on the infrastructure needs emerging
from the market studies. In addition to the new offshore wind installations these market
differences were the key drivers for increased interconnection and reinforcements in
2030.
The impact of these market differences is particularly evident in those countries
presenting a gas-focussed portfolio, like Great Britain and Belgium. The assumed and
agreed IEA fuel prices result in an economic production order of coal ahead of gas across
the region. As a result, gas-fired generation units provide just 10% of electric energy
(2030) even though they constitute over 20% of the installed capacity in the region.
Conversely, coal-fired generation units provide 16% of electric energy despite making up
just 9% of the total capacity installed. So, although gas capacity increases by 70%, and coal
capacity decreases by 8%, the energy production behaves inversely with an 18% decrease
for gas, but 190% increase for coal due to the impact of the assumed merit order. By
implication, this will play a major role in the countries’ import / export positions and
related infrastructure requirements.
Clearly running this amount of coal will have an impact on CO emissions, which according
2
to the results stay constant between 2020 and 2030. It therefore follows that, without
large-scale CCS integration, countries with the largest amounts of coal generation (e.g.
Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands) are and stay also the largest emitters of CO ,
2
although some movement between them can be observed between 2020 and 2030.
In an energy only market and under this scenario it is doubtful whether gas-fired plant
would have sufficient utilisation hours to be profitable with the assumed CO2 price and
fuel prices of gas and coal.
Thus, the resulting infrastructure for the Reference scenario should be re-evaluated, if the
underlying production mix assumptions are changed in the light of the results presented
in this study.
Even though there may be differing assumptions underpinning the Reference scenario it
provided an important insight to understand and evaluate the ten NSCOGI Governments’
best views. Through this exercise, NSCOGI has made it possible to combine unique
national knowledge with regional modelling capability. With this newly established
regional cooperation with key stakeholders, NSCOGI is better prepared to provide future
regional studies of this nature.
The results show clearly that the region can benefit from ‘talking-to-the-neighbours’ or
even cross-border cooperation on questions concerning both energy production unit
planning and the associated infrastructure development.
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