Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractAs an attempt to fight global warming, many countries try to reduce CO 2 emissions in the power sector by significantly increasing the proportion of renewable energies (RES-E). A highly intermeshed electricity transmission grid allows the achievement of this target cost-efficiently by enabling the usage of most favorable RES-E sites and by facilitating the integration of fluctuating RES-E infeed and regional electricity demands.However, construction of new lines is often proceeding very slowly in areas with a high population density.In this paper, we try to quantify the benefits of optimal transmission grid extensions for Europe until 2050 compared to moderate extensions when ambitious RES-E and CO 2 reduction targets are achieved. We iterate a large-scale dynamic investment and dispatch optimization model for Europe with a load-flow based transmission grid model, in order to determine the optimal deployment of electricity generation technologies and transmission grid extensions from a system integrated point of view. Main findings of our analysis include that large transmission grid extensions are needed to achieve the European targets cost-efficiently.When the electricity network is cost-optimally extended, 228,000 km are built until 2050, representing an increase of 76% compared to today. Further findings include substantial increases of average system costs for electricity until 2050, even if RES-E are deployed efficiently throughout Europe, the grid is extended optimally, and if significant cost reductions of RES-E are assumed.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract Electricity market models, implemented as dynamic programming problems, have been applied widely to identify possible pathways towards a cost-optimal and low carbon electricity system. However, the joint optimization of generation and transmission remains challenging, mainly due to the fact that different characteristics and rules apply to commercial and physical exchanges of electricity in meshed networks. This paper presents a methodology that allows to optimize power generation and transmission infrastructures jointly through an iterative approach based on power transfer distribution factors (PTDFs). As PTDFs are linear representations of the physical load flow equations, they can be implemented in a linear programming environment suitable for large scale problems. The algorithm iteratively updates PTDFs when grid infrastructures are modified due to cost-optimal extension and thus yields an optimal solution with a consistent representation of physical load flows. The method is first demonstrated on a simplified three-node model where it is found to be robust and convergent. It is then applied to the European power system in order to find its cost-optimal development under the prescription of strongly decreasing CO 2 emissions until 2050. Terms of use: Documents in

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Energy plays only a minor role in orthodox theories of economic growth, because standard economic equilibrium conditions say that the output elasticity of a production factor, which measures the factor's productive power, is equal to the factor's share in total factor cost. Having commanded only a tiny cost share of about 5 percent so far, energy is often neglected altogether. On the other hand, energy conversion in the machines of the capital stock has been the basis of industrial growth. How can the physically obvious economic importance of energy be reconciled with the conditions for economic equilibrium, which result from the maximization of profit or overall welfare? We show that these equilibrium conditions no longer yield the equality of cost shares and output elasticities, if the optimization calculus takes technological constraints on the combinations of capital, labor and energy into account. New econometric analyses of economic growth in Germany, Japan and the USA yield output elasticities that are for energy much larger and for labor much smaller than their cost shares. Social consequences are discussed.

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