Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 13: Energy Networks (joint session SOE/DY)
SOE 13.2: Talk
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 13:00–13:15, H11
Cascading Failures and Critical Infrastructures in Future Renewable Power Systems — Franz Kaiser1,2, Johannes Kruse1,2, •Philipp C. Böttcher1, Martha Maria Frysztacki3, Tom Brown3,4, and Dirk Witthaut1,2 — 1IEK-STE Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany — 2THP Uni Köln, Köln, Germany — 3KIT-IAI, Karlsruhe, Germany — 4Institut für Energietechnik TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany
The world’s power systems are undergoing a rapid transformation, shifting away from carbon-intensive power generation to renewable power sources. As a result, there is a growing importance of long-distance power transmission, while the intrinsic system inertia provided by thermal power plants decreases. This poses several challenges to the system such as accelerated dynamics and thus a higher control effort for transmission system operators. These developments make power grids more vulnerable to cascading failures, which may result in a splitting of the grid and eventually in a large-scale blackout. While large blackouts are rare but devastating events, several smaller splits were observed in recent years.
In this work, we use the state of the art open energy system model PyPSA to generate future energy systems and assess the risk of cascading failures and systems splits in the European power grid for different carbon reduction targets. We determine the likelihood of dangerous splits and discuss mitigation strategies.