Can 100% renewable power system be successfully built?

Global warming has been a critical issue in recent years. Many leaders and politicians have talked about replacing fossil fuels with Renewable Energy Resources (RES). Some of them even went further and are talking about running a country with 100% RES soon. Is that economically viable? What would be the estimated cost of such a system? In this paper, a city in west Texas with a 100 MW peak load has been assumed to operate with the wind, solar, and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) totally disconnected from the grid for a cost evaluation. Real generation and load time series data are used to achieve an optimum combination of the installed capacity of those resources by minimizing the total overnight cost, respecting a maximum of 24 h of faults in which the system cannot provide the load during the period. A Monte Carlo simulation is applied to the previous results to evaluate the influence of faulty devices and increase the robustness of the system. The results for both cases are analyzed and compared. Finally, the total cost of install capacity will be compared with other non-renewable resources. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The research paper investigates the cost evaluation of running a city in west Texas with wind, solar, and battery energy storage system disconnected from the grid. A Monte Carlo simulation is utilized to evaluate the impact of faulty devices and enhance the system's robustness. Finally, the total cost of renewable energy installation is compared with non-renewable resources.