Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The existing fossil fuel based power sector has to be transformed towards carbon neutrality in close future to limit global warming to 2°C. The 100% renewable energy (RE) based system will be discussed in the paper. Such a system can be built using already existing energy generation, storage and transmission technologies. A regional integration of Europe, Eurasia and MENA energy systems will facilitate access to lower cost energy sources in neighboring regions, provide additional flexibility in the system and decrease the need in energy storage and increase the system stability because of more distributed generation. Additional demand from synthetic gas generation will additionally decrease the energy storage demand, additional flexibility enables the system to use lower cost energy sources and the primary energy generation cost decreases. Finally, such an integration can provide a sustainable and economically feasible energy system with total LCOE of about 50 €/MWh for the year 2030 cost assumptions. Even for a much higher energy demand in the system the total LCOE will be around 42 €/MWh - lower than coal-CCS or new nuclear options.
Bogdanov et al. (Wed,) studied this question.