Into a cooler future with electricity generated from solar photovoltaic

Xiaoming Kan; Fredrik Hedenus; Lina Reichenberg; Olav Hohmeyer

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104208

Into a cooler future with electricity generated from solar photovoltaic

iScience. 2022 Apr 6;25(5):104208. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104208. eCollection 2022 May 20.

Authors

Xiaoming Kan¹, Fredrik Hedenus¹, Lina Reichenberg¹, Olav Hohmeyer²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Chalmersplatsen 4, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
² Department of Energy and Environmental Management, Europa-Universität Flensburg, Auf dem Campus 1, 24943 Flensburg, Germany.

Abstract

The fast-growing global cooling demand due to income growth in tropical countries necessitates substantial investments in new generation capacity. Despite the synergy between the temporal behavior of cooling demand and solar PV production, it is not clear whether the increased cooling demand will make solar PV more cost-effective or less so. We use a capacity expansion model to investigate the cost-effectiveness of investing in solar PV to meet the electricity demand linked to cooling for seven different regions under various CO₂ emission targets. Solar PV plays a dominant role in meeting the additional electricity demand for cooling, and the share of solar PV in the additional generation capacity ranges from 64% to 135%. Additionally, powering electric cooling with mainly solar PV is cheaper than powering the rest of the demand. These results suggest that solar PV may comprise the backbone of electricity supply for cooling in the future electricity system.

Keywords: Applied physics; Energy application; Materials science.