title: Challenges and opportunities of power systems from smart homes to super-grids.
abstract: The world's power systems are facing a structural change including liberalization of markets and integration of renewable energy sources. This paper describes the challenges that lie ahead in this process and points out avenues for overcoming different problems at different scopes, ranging from individual homes to international super-grids. We apply energy system models at those different scopes and find a trade-off between technical and social complexity. Small-scale systems would require technological breakthroughs, especially for storage, but individual agents can and do already start to build and operate such systems. In contrast, large-scale systems could potentially be more efficient from a techno-economic point of view. However, new political frameworks are required that enable long-term cooperation among sovereign entities through mutual trust. Which scope first achieves its breakthrough is not clear yet.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. pkuhn@tum.de.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuhn
authors.affiliation: Institute for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. matthias.huber@tum.de.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.affiliation: Institute for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. johannes.dorfner@tum.de.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dorfner
authors.affiliation: Institute for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany. thomas.hamacher@tum.de.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hamacher
mesh_terms: D011211:Electric Power Supplies / Q000145:classification; D004560:Electricity; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013672:Technology / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Renewable energy; Scaling; Socio-technical complexity; Sustainability; Transformation of energy systems