The energy transition is well underway in most European countries. It has agrowing impact on electric power systems as it dramatically modifies the wayelectricity is produced. To ensure a safe and smooth transition towards apan-European electricity production dominated by renewable sources, it is ofparamount importance to anticipate how production dispatches will evolve, tounderstand how increased fluctuations in power generations can be absorbed atthe pan-European level and to evaluate where the resulting changes in powerflows will require significant grid upgrades. To address these issues, weconstruct an aggregated model of the pan-European transmission network which wecouple to an optimized, few-parameter dispatch algorithm to obtain time- andgeographically-resolved production profiles. We demonstrate the validity of ourdispatch algorithm by reproducing historical production time series for allpower productions in fifteen different European countries. Having calibratedour model in this way, we investigate future production profiles at laterstages of the energy transition - determined by planned future productioncapacities - and the resulting interregional power flows. We find that largepower fluctuations from increasing penetrations of renewable sources can beabsorbed at the pan-European level via significantly increased electricityexchanges between different countries. We identify where these increasedexchanges will require additional power transfer capacities. We finallyintroduce a physically-based economic indicator which allows to predict futurefinancial conditions in the electricity market. We anticipate new economicopportunities for dam hydroelectricity and pumped-storage plants.
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