Planning Saudi Arabia’s Energy Transition for 2060 with PyPSA

Abstract

Plans for energy transition are more critical than ever as the impacts of climate change intensify. Saudi Arabia is making significant efforts to reduce its emissions in contribution to the global efforts to tackle climate change through its projects Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI), where net zero target has been set for 2060. The work in this dissertation is the first attempt to forecast Saudi Arabia's net zero energy system in the year 2060. The PyPSA-Africa package, which is a derivative of PyPSA, was used to construct a variety of models for the energy system. The models built in this study consist of a base model for validation, a model for 2030 as a comparison to the Vision and a transitional period, and two models for 2060 net zero, one of which is fully renewable energy while the other incorporates direct air capture (DAC) technology. Based on the generation mix, storage capacity, network expansion, hourly dispatch, curtailment, and costs, the models were assessed, and recommendations for the energy system in 2060 were provided. A spatial resolution of 30 clusters with an hourly timestep were considered. Weather data were obtained for the full year of 2013. The findings indicate that the 2030 model has a high penetration of wind energy, mostly to satisfy nighttime demand, whereas solar energy represents around a quarter of the generation mix. In contrast, battery storage is more cost effective for meeting 2060’s nighttime demand, allowing solar energy to be the predominant type of generation. The implementation of DAC technology can reduce the necessary total generation capacity by about a quarter, making it more economically beneficial than the fully renewable option, with an estimated average marginal price of 0.185 SAR/kWh. Hydrogen storage did not appear to be feasible for these models. However, A significant curtailment was noticed, which may be an opportunity for exporting electricity or producing hydrogen. The recommendations in this thesis can aid in developing policies for the country’s net zero target.