The role of power sources in the European electricity mix
Abstract
The ongoing debate in Europe about energy transition enhances the necessity to evaluate the
performance of the envisaged mix of power sources, in terms of production cost, CO$_2$ emissions and security of
supply. In this study, we use MIXOPTIM, a Monte-Carlo simulator of the behavior of a mix of power sources on
a territory, to evaluate the performance of the present EU power mix. After a validation on the French mix, we
applied it to the whole EU territory and made variational calculations around the present mix to evaluate the
performance impacts induced by small changes in installed renewable power and nuclear power. According to
the analyzed criteria, the study shows that a plausible way to keep an affordable MWh in Europe with minimal
amount of CO$_2$ emissions and acceptable security of supply could be to extend the life of existing Gen II nuclear
reactors. All other options lead to the degradation of the mix performance, on at least one of the three criteria
listed above.
Domains
Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive
Loading...