The relevance of CCS for the future power market

In recent years, climate protection has played a growing if not even dominating role in the European energy policy and beyond. In this context, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is discussed as one possible approach to decrease CO₂ emissions. Within this article an approach is presented which allows assessing the relevance of CCS, taking into account alternative abatement measures as well as transportation costs. The model framework is applied to the case of Germany which is analysed in the wider context of European energy markets. From a stochastic European electricity market model (E2M2s), general conditions for the German power market are derived in a first step. This model uses typical days and hours as well as recombining trees to represent both load and feed-in fluctuations. In a second step, the stochastic German Electricity model (GEM2s) with a higher regional resolution of 18 regions is used to determine location and dimension of transmission and CCS infrastructure as well as their operation. Four scenarios are investigated simultaneously optimizing generation investments as well as dispatch and utilization of transmission lines. Results are presented up to 2050 with focus on CCS investment and utilization of CCS infrastructure.