Introduction to the Energy Mixture in an Isolated Grid with 100% Renewable Electricity: the Faroe Islands

The Faroese Electrical Power Company SEV is aiming for a 100% renewable electricity sector by 2030. Today, the energy production is based on thermal, wind and hydro power. The renewable production accounts for roughly 50% of the total production. The Faroe Islands have a high potential of renewable energy resources with e.g. an average annual wind speed of 10 m/s and a precipitation of up to 3000 mm/year in some places. The future energy mixture has been investigated previously by a few studies with different aspects. These studies agree that investments should mainly be made in wind turbines, solar panels and pumped storage systems, in order to reach a 100% renewable electricity sector by 2030. Storage is a very important part of the future energy mixture, since the renewable energy sources cause a varying production, and the power system is isolated; thus, it is not possible to import or export power. This paper presents an initial optimisation of the least-cost path to a 100% renewable energy mixture. An
objective function with constraints is defined. The objective function is set to minimize the total annual costs of the systems. The costs included are investment costs and fixed and variable operation and maintenance costs. The minimisation procedure is a algorithm developed for the study. The technologies included in the optimisation are wind, solar, tidal and pumped storage. Other technologies considered, but not included in the optimisation, are the existing hydro plants and the planned biogas plant. The potential production from the different types of technologies included in the optimisation, is based on the available energy resources and technology characteristics. According to this study, the power company should invest in 85 MW of wind power, 204 MW solar power and a pumped storage system, with a pumped storage capacity of
2 GWh and a generation and pumping capacity of 91 MW and 179 MW respectively. The results of this study are compared to the current RoadMap to a 100% renewable electricity sector, while the limitations of the work done are discussed and future works regarding this topic are presented.