Published

The rapid expansion of low-cost renewable electricity combined with end-use electrification in transport, industry, and buildings offers a promising path to deep decarbonisation. However, aligning variable supply with demand requires strategies for daily and seasonal balancing. Existing models either lack the wide scope required for long-term transition pathways or the spatio-temporal detail to capture power system variability and flexibility. Here, we combine the complementary strengths of REMIND, a long-term integrated assessment model, and PyPSA-Eur, an hourly energy system model, through a bi-directional, price-based and iterative soft coupling. REMIND provides pathway variables such as sectoral electricity demand, installed capacities, and costs to PyPSA-Eur, which returns optimised operational variables such as capacity factors, storage requirements, and relative prices. After sufficient convergence, this integrated approach jointly optimises long-term investment and short-term operation. We demonstrate the coupling for two Germany-focused scenarios, with and without demand-side flexibility, reaching climate neutrality by 2045. Our results confirm that a sector-coupled energy system with nearly 100% renewable electricity is technically possible and economically viable. Power system flexibility influences long-term pathways through price differentiation: supply-side market values vary by generation technology, while demand-side prices vary by end-use sector. Flexible electrolysers and smart-charging electric vehicles benefit from below-average prices, whereas less flexible heat pumps face almost twice the average price due to winter peak loads. Without demand-side flexibility, electricity prices increase across all end-users, though battery deployment partially compensates. By integrating hourly power system dynamics into multi-decadal energy transition pathways, our approach addresses the fundamental trade-off between the wide scope needed for climate policy analysis and the spatio-temporal detail needed for power system planning.
Journal
Progress in Energy
Authors
Adrian Odenweller
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Technische Universität Berlin
Falko Ueckerdt
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Johannes Hampp
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Open Energy Transition
Ivan Ramirez
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Felix Schreyer
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Robin Hasse
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Technische Universität Berlin
Jarusch Müßel
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Technische Universität Berlin
Chen Chris Gong
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Robert Pietzcke
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Tom Brown
Technische Universität Berlin
Gunnar Luderer
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Technische Universität Berlin