ATLANTIS: techno-economic model of the European electricity sector

Heinz Stigler, Udo Bachhiesl, Gernot Nischler, Gerald Feichtinger

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Since the nuclear accident in Fukushima the European electricity economy has been in transition. The ongoing shut down of nuclear power plants and the widespread installation of wind power and photovoltaic generation capacities, especially in Germany, has led to a high share of intermittent renewable electricity production. This high amount of generation with very little variable cost has led to a significant decline of the prices at the European energy exchange. This has meant that many thermal power plants are no longer able to work economically and have already been shut down, although they would be needed in times of high demands and as backup capacities. Therefore, a redesign of the European electricity market is needed and in order to find out the right characteristics and effects of such a redesign pre-investigations based on simulation models are reasonable. This paper introduces ATLANTIS, which is a simulation model of the European electricity economy and covers technical as well as economic and environmental issues and allows the calculation of different scenarios up to 2050 and even beyond regarding the specific characteristics of the electricity economy. After a comprehensive introduction of the model some example applications and an outlook are presented.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)965-988
Number of pages24
JournalCentral European Journal of Operations Research
Volume24.2016
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright: © 2015, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • ATLANTIS
  • Capacity mechanisms
  • DC-OPF
  • Electricity economics
  • Electricity network development planning
  • Shadow prices
  • Simulation model

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