Climate variability on Fit for 55 European power systems

shown in [23] (for wind) and in [30] (for both wind and solar). In three of the identified pat- terns (AT, ScTR, EuBL), all the European regions show the same sign of daily generation of wind and/or solar while in the other three patterns, northern and southern regions exhibit opposing behaviours. During cyclonic patterns, the carbon intensity of electricity is generally lower across the whole continent, while the opposite happens during blocking regimes. This is partially due to the importance of wind in providing carbon-free electricity to the continent, which is mostly installed in central-western countries which tend to have stronger winds during cyclonic regimes [23]. 4. Discussion and conclusions This study analyses the impact of year-on-year variability of weather and large-scale weather patterns on the 2030 European power system as envisioned in the MIX scenario of the Fit for 55 policy package of the European Commission. The scenario assumes that 75% of the total installed power generation capacity and 65% of all electricity generated in the EU comes from renewable sources. In electricity systems with such a high dependence on variable renewable generation, characterising the variability is important for several reasons: 1. To evaluate possible seasonal supply/demand scenarios and ensure the efficient operation of seasonal storage levels for electricity generation (mostly hydropower reservoirs in the scenarios analysed). 2. To assess the importance of climatic variability for power system planning purposes. As dis-

cussed in [56], when using a single year, the capacity expansion optimisation may be highly dependent on the chosen climatic conditions. Fig 7. Difference (in GWh) of daily and wind generation across Europe during the patterns Atlantic Trough (AT, orange) and European Blocking (EuBL, green) for the European regions. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289705.g007 PLOS ONE Climate variability on Fit for 55 European power systems PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289705 December 20, 2023 11 / 16