Generation Adequacy in the European Power System – An Assessment in the Course of Time from 2010 to 2025

Without adequate security of supply the societal acceptance of a decarbonized energy system is endangered. Hence, to evaluate the future security of supply different tools for the assessment of Generation Adequacy have been applied with significantly different results. To increase the value of the derived indexes we propose to include a historic reference point in such analyses. Therefore, we apply the Generation Adequacy assessment tool SANDI on different scenarios in the course of time, starting in 2010 up to 2025. The results indicate that the level of security of supply, measured by the Loss of Load Expectation, is changing. Whereas in 2010 the assessment shows no significant Loss of Load Expectation, in 2025 even in well-connected countries in continental Europe, like France and Germany, hours with load exceeding possible generation have to be expected under the assumed scenarios. This indicates that without an enhanced contribution of the demand side the level of security of supply might indeed decrease in future scenarios with increasing renewables and decreasing number of thermal power plants if no countermeasures are taken.