Benefits of marine renewable energies and high-resolution datasets for energy systems

The energy transition demands careful planning, considering economic, technical, social, and resource constraints. In Europe, while electrification targets are ambitious, marine renewables remain underexplored. This study aspires to enhance the PyPSA-Eur framework to create PyPSA-Eur-MREL by integrating all marine renewable (bottom fixed offshore wind, floating wind, floating solar, wave energy, tidal energy) sources using high-resolution datasets (≤ 5Km) to the energy system model of Europe for electricity. The study evaluates power output, deployment strategies, and packing densities of the energy carriers, projecting the impact of marine renewables across Europe for 2030, both in terms of power security, area-usage, with respect to greenfield generation, and the Offshore Energy Strategy (OES). As base scenario the ERA5 dataset is utilised, our higher spatio-temporal resolution data, install more marine renewables, reduce energy storage needs by 73%, minimise wind energy installed capacity by 50%, lower system curtailments by 60%, finally system costs for a 2030 fully renewable system drop by 40% per year. The presence of marine renewables offers cost savings, improves demand matching, and have a higher spatial energy density, highlighting their critical role in decarbonisation of the electricity sector.