arXiv subjects

Parisa Rahdan

Publications and source records attributed to Parisa Rahdan.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Identifying demand-side measures that matter most for Europe's decarbonisation

European countries pursue a miscellany of historic, emerging, and planned initiatives to transform energy demand through behavioural shifts and end-use efficiency improvements. Yet, these efforts often evolve within fragmented national frameworks that overlook the rapidly evolving supply landscape, risking misaligned investments and diminishing public engagement. We address this need for prioritization by employing a high-resolution model of the European energy system under a net-zero constraint to co-optimise demand and supply strategies across seven sectors, mapping system response to demand mechanisms that reflect real-world practices. Our findings confirm large-scale gains from demand reductions in heating and industry, and show carbon capture reliance is most sensitive to demand reduction in aviation and shipping sectors. For heating, reducing demand peak hours yields the greatest system-level benefit, while critical demand curtailment emerges as the most effective strategy for the power sector, and is also substantially helpful in alleviating high electricity prices for consumers. Smaller, and arguably more attainable, flexibility measures also prove consequential: shifting demand to coincide with solar output delivers noticeable system-wide advantages, even when the shift spans as little as two hours.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Lessons learned from establishing a rooftop photovoltaic system crowdsourced by students and employees at Aarhus University

Energy communities are promoted in the European legislation as a strategy to enable citizen participation in the energy transition. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, due to their distributed nature, present an opportunity to create such communities. At Aarhus University (Denmark), we have established an energy community consisting of a 98-kW rooftop solar PV installation, crowdsourced by students and employees of the university. The participants can buy one or several shares of the installation (which is divided into 900 shares), the electricity is consumed by the university, and the shareowners receive some economic compensation every year. The road to establishing this energy community has been rough, and we have gathered many lessons. In this manuscript, we present the 10 largest challenges which might arise when setting up a university energy community and our particular approach to facing them. Sharing these learnings might pave the way for those willing to establish their own energy community. We also include policy recommendations at the European, national, and municipal levels to facilitate the deployment of energy communities

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Strategic deployment of solar photovoltaics for achieving self-sufficiency in Europe throughout the energy transition

Transition pathways for Europe to achieve carbon neutrality emphasize the need for a massive deployment of solar and wind energy. Global cost optimization would lead to installing most of the renewable capacity in a few resource-rich countries, but policy decisions could prioritize other factors. In this study, we focus on the effect of energy independence on Europe's energy system design. We show that self-sufficiency constraints lead to a more equitable distribution of costs and installed capacities across Europe. However, countries that typically depend on energy imports face cost increases of up to 150% to achieve complete self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency particularly favours solar photovoltaic (PV) energy, and with declining PV module prices, alternative configurations like inverter dimensioning and horizontal tracking are beneficial enough to be part of the optimal solution for many countries. Moreover, we found that very large solar and wind annual installation rates are required, but they seem feasible in light of recent historical trends.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2023

Distributed photovoltaics provides key benefits for a highly renewable European energy system

Distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are projected to be a key contributor to future energy landscape, but are often poorly represented in energy models due to their distributed nature. They have higher costs compared to utility PV, but offer additional advantages, e.g., in terms of social acceptance. Here, we model the European power network with a high spatial resolution of 181 nodes and a 2-hourly temporal resolution. We use a simplified model of distribution and transmission networks that allows the representation of power distribution losses and differentiates between utility and distributed generation and storage. Three scenarios, including a sector-coupled scenario with heating, transport, and industry are investigated. The results show that incorporating distributed solar PV leads to total system cost reduction in all scenarios (1.4% for power sector, 1.9-3.7% for sector-coupled). The achieved cost reductions primarily stem from demand peak reduction and lower distribution capacity requirements because of self-consumption from distributed solar. This also enhances self-sufficiency for countries. The role of distributed PV is noteworthy in the sector-coupled scenario and is helped by other distributed technologies including heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.

physics.soc-ph↗