This blog discusses future scenarios for the energy system. It also stores a record of my LinkedIn, BlueSky and older Twitter posts. All posts are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
The Minimal Methanol Economy as a Gap-Filler for High Electrification Scenarios
Date: 2025.05.19
As the hydrogen bubble deflates, what are the alternatives? We present a "minimal methanol economy": using methanol as a gap filler for the few sectors electrification can't reach.
New working paper together with Philipp Glaum, Fabian Neumann and Markus Millinger.
Price formation without fuel costs: the interaction of demand elasticity with storage bidding
Date: 2025.05.12
Stable electricity prices when wind and solar dominate? Sure! All you need is storage plus a little bit of demand elasticity.
New paper in Energy Economics with co-authors Fabian Neumann and Iegor Riepin.
model.energy/future: Challenging Winter 2024/5
Date: 2025.04.23
This past winter 2024/5 would have been challenging for a renewable system in Germany, due to a row of dark wind lulls (Dunkelflauten), combined with colder weather.
Welche Kosten ließen sich mit einer Gebotszonentrennung in Deutschland sparen?
Date: 2025.04.01
Bis 2045 ist die Einsparung sicherlich im zweistelligen Milliardenbereich, aber umfassende Studien dazu gibt es für Deutschland leider nicht. Hier fasse ich einige Studien zusammen.
Vorschlag für die Senkung der Netzengelte
Date: 2025.03.10
Vorschlag: Anstatt die Übertragungsnetze dauerhaft zu subventionieren, lieber kosteneffizienter bauen und ein Teil der Kosten mit einem Amortisationskonto um ein paar Jahre verschieben
Nach unserer Berechnung kann man mit kluger Planung etwa 92 Mrd. EUR (einen ,,Wumms'') sparen
Options for the Dunkelflaute
Date: 2024.11.10
The last few days were tough for our simulation of a future German renewable electricity system. The dreaded dark wind lull forces the model to rely on stored electrolytic hydrogen.
What would alternative clean supply systems look like?
Flexibility from biogas
Date: 2024.08.30
What flexibility do we need from biogas?
Shifting baseload generation by a few hours with small storage helps, but what we really need is seasonal flex by upgrading to biomethane/ol (and using most of it in other sectors).
A few thoughts on scaling, grids, liquids.
model.energy/future: Live future Germany power system updated with new loads
Date: 2024.02.21
"Future Germany with today's weather" site has experimental scenario with:
- 15 million additional heat pumps 🌡️
- 30 million battery electric passenger cars 🚘
- 100 TWh/a hydrogen demand 🫧
model.energy/future: Future German renewable power system with today's data
Date: 2024.01.23
A future German renewable power system running on today's market datascaled u up.
Methanol for ultra-long-duration energy storage anywhere
Date: 2023.10.31
A renewable power system that is reliable whatever the weather? 🌬️⛅️
The case for e-methanol with carbon cycling ♻️::liquid storage that can be built anywhere
All your carbon shall be methanol
Date: 2023.10.03
Arguments for mopping up all carbon in wastes and residues into methanol; use it to supply sectors that can't be electrified
TL,DR: methanol is liquid; easier to transport/store than CH4/H2/CO2; costs scale down nicely to multi-MW size
Mitigating heat demand peaks in buildings in a highly renewable European energy system
Date: 2022.03.15
- Renovating buildings to make them more efficient doesn't just reduce energy use
- It also reduces demand peaks in electrified system
- Critical for the kalte Dunkelflaute! (cold, electric heat, low wind, low sun)
- Strategies for heat demand in zero-CO2 Europe in a new paper
Learning effects lead to path dependency
Date: 2021.05.22
- Learning effects lead to path dependency
- Including learning in your model => many distinct local optima
William Armstrong's 1863 admirable speech
Date: 2020.10.22
C. Darwin: an "admirable speech"
In 1863, William Armstrong advocates:
- end of coal
- efficiency
- electrification
- renewables (he developed first hydro power)
- open data
- technological learning ("tendency of progress is to quicken progress")
History of green hydrogen
Date: 2020.10.17
- Idea of using electrolysis of water & storing hydrogen is almost as old as electrolysis (1789)
- Already a lively debate in 1863 about combining variable renewables with electrolytic hydrogen to replace coal
Nothing new about electrolytic hydrogen
Date: 2020.07.31
Despite the current hype, there's nothing new about electrolytic hydrogen.
- 100 MW electrolysers since late 1920s for fertiliser and heavy water
- 100 GWh salt cavern storage since 1960s
- 4500 km hydrogen pipelines today
What was missing was abundant low cost power.
History of ideas for integrating renewable energy
Date: 2020.03.06
I would love to read a history of ideas to integrate renewable energy
This 1955 book is very familiar:
- electrify first to avoid conversion losses
- then use thermal, hydrogen and compressed air energy storage to balance wind variations
Market value decline is a policy artefact
Date: 2020.02.17
VRE cannibalisation is a policy artefact, not a physical system constraint.
model.energy: Build your own clean electricity supply
Date: 2019.12.05
- wind, solar, storage + others optimized live while you wait
- works for any region in the world
- you choose your own technology assumptions
First Coherent Renewables Scenario: Bent Sørensen in 1970s
Date: 2019.06.23
Who came up with the first coherent plan to use renewables to cover all our energy needs?
My money is on Bent Sørensen, who wrote two ground-breaking papers in the 1970s.
Burden of proof
Date: 2018.05.31
In this post we provide some commentary on our recent paper "Response to 'Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems'".