摘要：SummarySolar photovoltaics, with sufficient power generation potential, low-carbon footprint, and rapidly declining costs, could supplant fossil fuels and help produce lower-cost net-zero emissions energy systems. Here we used an idealized linear optimization model, including free lossless transmission, to study the response of electricity systems to increasing prescribed amounts of solar power. Our results show that there are initially great benefits when providing solar power to the system, especially under deep decarbonization scenarios. The marginal value of additional solar power decreases substantially with increasing cumulative solar capacities. At costs near today’s levels, the modeled zero-emission electricity system with free solar generation equaling twice the annual mean demand is more costly than a carbon-emitting natural-gas-based system supplying the same electricity demand with no solar. Taking full advantage of low-cost solar will depend on developing and deploying low-cost approaches to temporally shift either energy supply (e.g., storage) or electricity loads (e.g., load-shifting).Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Solar power greatly reduces system costs when initially adding to energy systems.•The benefit of low-cost solar power is higher under deep emissions reduction cases.•The marginal value of additional solar power decreases with increasing capacities.•Taking full advantage of solar needs approaches to increase systematic flexibility.Energy resources; Energy policy; Energy engineering; Energy systems; Energy flexibility
