| Spurred on by ambitious national commitments, international agreements, and rapid technological progress, national governments are increasingly choosing renewable energy to expand their power infrastructure. Amid this accelerating transition, the variability of solar and wind energy – two key sources for renewable power generation – presents new challenges. Decision-makers rely increasingly on techno-economic assessments, both to inform policy development and to help set the right national targets for renewable power uptake. For that reason, the modeling of different possible future scenarios has become a critical planning tool in the power sector. Planners and modelers in certain markets have developed considerable knowledge on how to represent VRE in long-term models for power sector transition. Findings from AVRIL (“Addressing Variable Renewable Energy in Long-term Energy Planning”), a project by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), highlight the best practices in long-term planning for, and modeling of, high shares of VRE. |
