Economic viability of flexibility options for smart energy systems with high penetration of renewable energy

Since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, European Union has made contributions to increase the share of renewable energy in its energy mix and limit global warming to 2 °C. Additionally, the European Union has with the passing of the “European Green Deal”, set a plan to transition to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 which is planned to be achieved by the implementation of renewable energy generating capacities and parallel implementation of sector coupling, energy balancing, and storage technologies. These technologies are required to avoid the emergence of new problems like curtailment and jeopardization of system stability. The application of these technologies may vary due to their operating characteristics as well as the costs associated with them. The goal of this research is to show the most economically viable dynamics of achieving high penetration of renewable energy in combination with different flexibility options on a case study. Application of flexibility options is considered with the goal of keeping critical excess electricity generation within 5% of total electricity demand. The simulations are performed with the combination of energy planning software EnergyPLAN and an optimization software EPLANopt. Results show that the most effective technologies are the vehicle to grid, smart charge, improvements of energy efficiency, and pumped hydro storage. •Optimization of Croatian energy system towards fully renewable system.•Consideration of CEEP, total cost, CO2 emissions and the use of Biomass.•Use of EnergyPLAN in combination with EPLANopt.•Performance of flexibility and balancing technologies at various shares of RES.•New method of comparing the technology utilization.