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Renewable Potentials and Floating Offshore Wind Integration in California
Renewable Potentials and Floating Offshore Wind Integration in California
상세정보
- 자료유형
- 학위논문 서양
- 최종처리일시
- 20260202104851
- ISBN
- 9798288815874
- DDC
- 333.79
- 서명/저자
- Renewable Potentials and Floating Offshore Wind Integration in California
- 발행사항
- [Sl] : Stanford University, 2025
- 발행사항
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2025
- 형태사항
- 366 p
- 주기사항
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-02, Section: B.
- 주기사항
- Advisor: Azevedo, Ines.
- 학위논문주기
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2025.
- 초록/해제
- 요약Renewable electricity generation will need to be rapidly scaled to address climate change, air pollution, and broader environmental and social challenges. Achieving this transformation requires more than deploying wind and solar technologies at scale, it requires understanding the full chain from resource availability to system-level integration. Key uncertainties remain around where renewables can be deployed, how much they will cost, how reliably they can serve demand, and what infrastructure will be needed to support them. Addressing these questions requires a combination of global assessments, regionally specific data, and system modeling approaches. This dissertation contributes to that effort through four complementary studies that assess renewable potential, explore the techno-economics of emerging technologies, and evaluate integration strategies for a reliable and affordable decarbonized electricity system. In Study 1, "Global Technical, Economic, and Feasible Potential of Renewable Electricity," we review estimates for renewable electricity of the global technical potential, defined as the amount of electricity that could be produced with current technologies when accounting for geographical and technical limitations as well as conversion efficiencies; economic potential, which also includes cost; and feasible potential, which accounts for societal and environmental constraints. We consider utility-scale and rooftop solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, onshore and offshore wind, hydropower, geothermal electricity, and ocean (wave, tidal, ocean thermal energy conversion, and salinity gradient energy) technologies. We find that the reported technical potential for each energy resource ranges over several orders of magnitude across and often within technologies. Therefore, we also discuss the main factors explaining why authors find such different results. According to this review and on the basis of the most robust studies, we find that technical potentials for utility-scale solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, onshore wind, and offshore wind are above 100 PWh/year. Hydropower, geothermal electricity, and ocean thermal energy conversion have technical potentials above 10 PWh/year. Rooftop solar photovoltaic, wave, and tidal have technical potentials above 1 PWh/year. Salinity gradient has a technical potential above 0.1 PWh/year. The literature assessing the global economic potential of renewables, which considers the cost of each renewable resource, shows that the economic potential is higher than current and near-future electricity demand. Fewer studies have calculated the global feasible potential, which considers societal and environmental constraints. While these ranges are useful for assessing the magnitude of available energy sources, they may omit challenges for large-scale renewable portfolios. For Study 2, "Floating Offshore Wind on the U.S. West Coast: An Expert Elicitation," we started focusing on an emerging renewable technology in a specific region: floating offshore wind (FOSW) along the West Coast of the U.S. Despite the lack of any installed turbines in the country as of 2025, California has ambitious offshore wind goals of 2 -- 5 GW by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. The coastline deep ocean floor calls for floating offshore wind, a new technology whose application has yet to be built to scale. Given the novelty, deep uncertainty, and lack of data regarding FOSW, we fielded an expert elicitation regarding the costs, probability and duration of failure, and likely potential system architectures. We find that there is significant disagreement among experts: cost estimates vary by a factor of at least 3. Probabilities of failure range from 0.01% to 20% for most parts of the system. Experts diverged on likely transmission configurations that are likely to be used with FOSW projects, though most agreed DC technologies will be used in the future. Overall, experts believe California's 2030 FOSW targets will not be met but could be achieved by 2035, and 2045 targets could be realized with faster buildout of future lease areas. Study 3, "Techno-Economic Assessment of Floating Offshore Wind in California," employs the data collected in Study 2 to determine the potential costs of the first two FOSW projects and their potential associated transmission systems in California. Floating offshore wind remains an emerging technology with significant uncertainty surrounding its future development. We estimate the electricity output, levelized cost of energy, and levelized cost of transmission, broken down per component, for two locations where offshore wind projects are planned - Humboldt and Morro Bay. We find that the 2035 combined median levelized cost of energy and transmission ranges from $95.0/MWh to $120.6/MWh for Humboldt and $97.2/MWh to $112.2/MWh for Morro Bay. The uncertainty in these figures is large, ranging from $43.5/MWh to $385.2/MWh based on the best- and worse- case cost scenarios across the two farms. Operations and maintenance, turbines, and floating foundations expenses are the largest contributors to levelized costs. Conversely, for all cost scenarios, transmission represents a small portion of total project costs. While the uncertainty in overall costs for these projects is widespread and reinforced by our sensitivity and Monte Carlo analyses, we find that floating offshore wind in California could be competitive with fixed-bottom offshore wind and coal in 2035. This analysis emphasizes the importance of strategic planning and investment in floating offshore wind to meet California's renewable energy goals. Study 4, "The Impact of Transmission Expansion, Long-Duration Energy Storage, and Floating Offshore Wind Mandates on the Western U.S. grid," broadens the analysis from project- and technology-specific assessments to a system-level evaluation of renewable integration in the Western U.S. electricity grid. It is clear that decarbonizing the electricity system by mid-century requires integrating large shares of variable renewable energy while maintaining affordability and reliability. This study evaluates the role of transmission expansion and long-duration energy storage (LDES) in supporting that goal using a high-resolution capacity expansion model (PyPSA-USA) of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council in 2040. We analyze eleven core scenarios varying transmission availability, LDES costs and deployment, and offshore wind policy mandates. Results show that transmission delivers the largest system benefits, enabling large-scale onshore wind deployment, lowering emissions by over 60 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year (referenced as MMTCO2/year henceforth) , and reducing total system costs by up to $4 billion annually. However, expanding transmission beyond a 30% increase yields diminishing returns, reinforcing the value of near-term, feasible grid projects. Metal-Air storage is cost-effective under optimistic and conservative assumptions, and enhances flexibility, while hydrogen storage is not deployed even under optimistic costs. We find that LDES and transmission are complementary, not substitutes. Floating offshore wind is not selected without a policy mandate and delivers modest system performance gains and higher cost when forced. These findings underscore the system value grid expansion, particularly the initial stages, and highlight the need for coordinated policies that support both LDES and transmission. Explicit emissions constraints may be required to achieve full decarbonization, as least-cost outcomes alone do not eliminate emissions. Together, these four studies provide a multi-scale perspective on the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to a deeply decarbonized electricity system. They demonstrate that while renewable resources are abundant and costs continue to decline, system-level feasibility depends on more than resource potential or technology maturity, it also requires robust infrastructure, policy coordination, and flexible planning tools. By combining global assessments, expert-informed cost modeling, regional techno-economics, and high-resolution capacity expansion analysis, this dissertation offers insights for researchers, planners, and policymakers seeking to design energy systems that are affordable, reliable, and aligned with long-term climate goals.
- 일반주제명
- Offshore
- 일반주제명
- Emissions
- 일반주제명
- Climate change
- 일반주제명
- Energy
- 일반주제명
- Alternative energy
- 기타저자
- Stanford University.
- 기본자료저록
- Dissertations Abstracts International. 87-02B.
- 전자적 위치 및 접속
- 로그인 후 원문을 볼 수 있습니다.
MARC
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■040 ▼aMiAaPQ▼cMiAaPQ
■0820 ▼a333.79
■1001 ▼aAngliviel de La Beaumelle, Nils.
■24510▼aRenewable Potentials and Floating Offshore Wind Integration in California
■260 ▼a[Sl]▼bStanford University▼c2025
■260 1▼aAnn Arbor▼bProQuest Dissertations & Theses▼c2025
■300 ▼a366 p
■500 ▼aSource: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-02, Section: B.
■500 ▼aAdvisor: Azevedo, Ines.
■5021 ▼aThesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2025.
■520 ▼aRenewable electricity generation will need to be rapidly scaled to address climate change, air pollution, and broader environmental and social challenges. Achieving this transformation requires more than deploying wind and solar technologies at scale, it requires understanding the full chain from resource availability to system-level integration. Key uncertainties remain around where renewables can be deployed, how much they will cost, how reliably they can serve demand, and what infrastructure will be needed to support them. Addressing these questions requires a combination of global assessments, regionally specific data, and system modeling approaches. This dissertation contributes to that effort through four complementary studies that assess renewable potential, explore the techno-economics of emerging technologies, and evaluate integration strategies for a reliable and affordable decarbonized electricity system. In Study 1, "Global Technical, Economic, and Feasible Potential of Renewable Electricity," we review estimates for renewable electricity of the global technical potential, defined as the amount of electricity that could be produced with current technologies when accounting for geographical and technical limitations as well as conversion efficiencies; economic potential, which also includes cost; and feasible potential, which accounts for societal and environmental constraints. We consider utility-scale and rooftop solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, onshore and offshore wind, hydropower, geothermal electricity, and ocean (wave, tidal, ocean thermal energy conversion, and salinity gradient energy) technologies. We find that the reported technical potential for each energy resource ranges over several orders of magnitude across and often within technologies. Therefore, we also discuss the main factors explaining why authors find such different results. According to this review and on the basis of the most robust studies, we find that technical potentials for utility-scale solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, onshore wind, and offshore wind are above 100 PWh/year. Hydropower, geothermal electricity, and ocean thermal energy conversion have technical potentials above 10 PWh/year. Rooftop solar photovoltaic, wave, and tidal have technical potentials above 1 PWh/year. Salinity gradient has a technical potential above 0.1 PWh/year. The literature assessing the global economic potential of renewables, which considers the cost of each renewable resource, shows that the economic potential is higher than current and near-future electricity demand. Fewer studies have calculated the global feasible potential, which considers societal and environmental constraints. While these ranges are useful for assessing the magnitude of available energy sources, they may omit challenges for large-scale renewable portfolios. For Study 2, "Floating Offshore Wind on the U.S. West Coast: An Expert Elicitation," we started focusing on an emerging renewable technology in a specific region: floating offshore wind (FOSW) along the West Coast of the U.S. Despite the lack of any installed turbines in the country as of 2025, California has ambitious offshore wind goals of 2 -- 5 GW by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. The coastline deep ocean floor calls for floating offshore wind, a new technology whose application has yet to be built to scale. Given the novelty, deep uncertainty, and lack of data regarding FOSW, we fielded an expert elicitation regarding the costs, probability and duration of failure, and likely potential system architectures. We find that there is significant disagreement among experts: cost estimates vary by a factor of at least 3. Probabilities of failure range from 0.01% to 20% for most parts of the system. Experts diverged on likely transmission configurations that are likely to be used with FOSW projects, though most agreed DC technologies will be used in the future. Overall, experts believe California's 2030 FOSW targets will not be met but could be achieved by 2035, and 2045 targets could be realized with faster buildout of future lease areas. Study 3, "Techno-Economic Assessment of Floating Offshore Wind in California," employs the data collected in Study 2 to determine the potential costs of the first two FOSW projects and their potential associated transmission systems in California. Floating offshore wind remains an emerging technology with significant uncertainty surrounding its future development. We estimate the electricity output, levelized cost of energy, and levelized cost of transmission, broken down per component, for two locations where offshore wind projects are planned - Humboldt and Morro Bay. We find that the 2035 combined median levelized cost of energy and transmission ranges from $95.0/MWh to $120.6/MWh for Humboldt and $97.2/MWh to $112.2/MWh for Morro Bay. The uncertainty in these figures is large, ranging from $43.5/MWh to $385.2/MWh based on the best- and worse- case cost scenarios across the two farms. Operations and maintenance, turbines, and floating foundations expenses are the largest contributors to levelized costs. Conversely, for all cost scenarios, transmission represents a small portion of total project costs. While the uncertainty in overall costs for these projects is widespread and reinforced by our sensitivity and Monte Carlo analyses, we find that floating offshore wind in California could be competitive with fixed-bottom offshore wind and coal in 2035. This analysis emphasizes the importance of strategic planning and investment in floating offshore wind to meet California's renewable energy goals. Study 4, "The Impact of Transmission Expansion, Long-Duration Energy Storage, and Floating Offshore Wind Mandates on the Western U.S. grid," broadens the analysis from project- and technology-specific assessments to a system-level evaluation of renewable integration in the Western U.S. electricity grid. It is clear that decarbonizing the electricity system by mid-century requires integrating large shares of variable renewable energy while maintaining affordability and reliability. This study evaluates the role of transmission expansion and long-duration energy storage (LDES) in supporting that goal using a high-resolution capacity expansion model (PyPSA-USA) of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council in 2040. We analyze eleven core scenarios varying transmission availability, LDES costs and deployment, and offshore wind policy mandates. Results show that transmission delivers the largest system benefits, enabling large-scale onshore wind deployment, lowering emissions by over 60 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year (referenced as MMTCO2/year henceforth) , and reducing total system costs by up to $4 billion annually. However, expanding transmission beyond a 30% increase yields diminishing returns, reinforcing the value of near-term, feasible grid projects. Metal-Air storage is cost-effective under optimistic and conservative assumptions, and enhances flexibility, while hydrogen storage is not deployed even under optimistic costs. We find that LDES and transmission are complementary, not substitutes. Floating offshore wind is not selected without a policy mandate and delivers modest system performance gains and higher cost when forced. These findings underscore the system value grid expansion, particularly the initial stages, and highlight the need for coordinated policies that support both LDES and transmission. Explicit emissions constraints may be required to achieve full decarbonization, as least-cost outcomes alone do not eliminate emissions. Together, these four studies provide a multi-scale perspective on the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to a deeply decarbonized electricity system. They demonstrate that while renewable resources are abundant and costs continue to decline, system-level feasibility depends on more than resource potential or technology maturity, it also requires robust infrastructure, policy coordination, and flexible planning tools. By combining global assessments, expert-informed cost modeling, regional techno-economics, and high-resolution capacity expansion analysis, this dissertation offers insights for researchers, planners, and policymakers seeking to design energy systems that are affordable, reliable, and aligned with long-term climate goals.
■590 ▼aSchool code: 0212.
■650 4▼aAlternative energy sources
■650 4▼aOffshore
■650 4▼aEmissions
■650 4▼aClimate change
■650 4▼aEnergy
■650 4▼aAlternative energy
■650 4▼aEnvironmental engineering
■653 ▼aRenewable electricity generation
■653 ▼aSolar technologies
■653 ▼aGeothermal electricity
■690 ▼a0404
■690 ▼a0775
■690 ▼a0363
■690 ▼a0791
■71020▼aStanford University.
■7730 ▼tDissertations Abstracts International▼g87-02B.
■790 ▼a0212
■791 ▼aPh.D.
■792 ▼a2025
■793 ▼aEnglish
■85640▼uhttp://www.riss.kr/pdu/ddodLink.do?id=T17359217▼nKERIS▼z이 자료의 원문은 한국교육학술정보원에서 제공합니다.


