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A generation-attraction model for renewable energy flows in Italy: A complex network approach

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Abstract

In recent years, in Italy, the trend of the electricity demand and the need to connect a large number of renewable energy power generators to the power-grid, developed a novel type of energy transmission/distribution infrastructure. The Italian Transmission System Operator (TSO) and the Distribution System Operator (DSO), worked on a new infrastructural model, based on electronic meters and information technology. In pursuing this objective it is crucial importance to understand how even more larger shares of renewable energy can be fully integrated, providing a constant and reliable energy background over space and time. This is particularly true for intermittent sources as photovoltaic installations due to the fine-grained distribution of them across the Country. In this work we use an over-simplified model to characterize the Italian power grid as a graph whose nodes are Italian municipalities and the edges cross the administrative boundaries between a selected municipality and its first neighbours, following a Delaunay triangulation. Our aim is to describe the power flow as a diffusion process over a network, and using open data on the solar irradiation at the ground level, we estimate the production of photovoltaic energy in each node. An attraction index was also defined using demographic data, in accordance with average per capita energy consumption data. The available energy on each node was calculated by finding the stationary state of a generation-attraction model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, Via A. De Gasperi 2, 53100, Siena, Italy

    Luca Valori, Giovanni Luca Giannuzzi & Riccardo Basosi

  2. Institute for Advanced Studies IMT, 55100, Lucca, Italy

    Angelo Facchini & Tiziano Squartini

  3. Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden Institute of Physics, University of Leiden, Niels Bohrweg 2, 2333, CA Leiden, Netherlands

    Diego Garlaschelli

  4. National Research Council – Institute for Complex Systems, Rome, Italy

    Angelo Facchini

Authors
  1. Luca Valori
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  2. Giovanni Luca Giannuzzi
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  3. Angelo Facchini
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  4. Tiziano Squartini
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  5. Diego Garlaschelli
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  6. Riccardo Basosi
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Correspondence to Riccardo Basosi.

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Valori, L., Giannuzzi, G., Facchini, A. et al. A generation-attraction model for renewable energy flows in Italy: A complex network approach. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 225, 1913–1927 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-60019-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-60019-3

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