PyPSA-PL: Ambitious RES deployment is viable, even including grid costs
Patryk Berus
Dear All,
Instrat’s new report “Grids Fit-For-Purpose” shows that investments in electricity grids are not an economic barrier to the deployment of renewable energy sources in Poland.
Using PyPSA-PL, the only publicly available model of the Polish energy system to include both transmission and distribution, we verified whether ambitious RES deployment is still economically viable when grid costs are accounted for.
Key insights:
Under an ambitious RES pathway (80% RES by 2040), the total system costs are lower than under a slower transition scenario.
Grid investments are inevitable anyway – replacing old infrastructure and making it ready for new demand will cost around EUR 80 billion by 2040.
Spending ~EUR 10 bn more on grids pays off – this enables deployment of greater capacity of low-cost wind & solar power and results in lower unit cost of supplied electricity.
Joint generation and grid expansion planning can unlock >EUR 25 billion in savings.
The takeaway for modellers and planners: integrated, nodal, and open modelling matters. When grids, generation and flexibility are treated jointly, the “hidden cost” narrative around grids and RES simply doesn’t hold.
Materials:
| Patryk Berus |
| Head of Communications |
| Instrat |
| al. Szucha 16/52 | 00-582 Warsaw |
| +48 519 466 422 |
| patryk...@instrat.pl |
| www.instrat.pl | energy.instrat.pl | esg.instrat.pl |
| twitter | linkedin |
 |
Robbie Morrison
Hi Patryk (× 2)
Very readable and well argued.
Another recent civil society report of possible interest to this community — this time focused more on the TSOs than their grids:
- Anon (May 2025). How Europe's grid operators are preparing for the energy transition. Beyond Fossil Fuels (BFF), Ember, E3G, and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
See Figure 5 (p28): Energy modelling software used by European
TSOs.
The report also discusses use of the SNSP (system non-synchronous penetration) metric on stability grounds — effectively setting an upper bound on renewables uptake under current architectures.
best, Robbie
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Tom Brown
Great to see the PyPSA-PL report out, great job Patryk and team.
Interesting also to see the map of modelling software, although PLEXOS
feels underrepresented there - many TSOs use multiple tools.
Just to push back a bit on SNSP though (the main reason for my mail):
this should really be calculated for the whole synchronous system.
So for Ireland the 75% SNSP limit applies to the island of Ireland,
including the Eirgrid and SONI parts. I don't think calculating SNSP for
a country like Germany, that sits in the middle of an enormous
synchronous zone, makes sense.
There's also no magical upper limit. In Hawaii, Maui already gets up to
90%, Western Australia up to 84%. And those are old records, see Figure
5 here from AEMO:
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/initiatives/engineering-framework/2024/nem-engineering-roadmap-fy2025-priority-actions.pdf?la=en&hash=E934DFFF6D4544B9F117BAF6A6E4088D
Best,
Tom
On 06/02/2026 10:38, Robbie Morrison wrote:
> Hi Patryk (× 2)
>
> Very readable and well argued.
>
> Another recent civil society report of possible interest to this
> community — this time focused more on the TSOs than their grids:
>
> energy transition/ <https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/
> uploads/2025/05/REPORT_FINAL.pdf>. Beyond Fossil Fuels (BFF), Ember,
> (IEEFA).
>
> See Figure 5 (p28): Energy modelling software used by European TSOs.
>
> The report also discusses use of the SNSP (system non-synchronous
> penetration) metric on stability grounds — effectively setting an upper
> bound on renewables uptake under current architectures.
>
> best, Robbie
>
> On 03/02/2026 13:16, Patryk Berus wrote:
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>>
>> grids-and-res/>” shows that investments in electricity grids are not
>> Poland.
>>
>>
>> Using PyPSA-PL, the only publicly available model of the Polish energy
>> system to include both transmission and distribution, we verified
>> whether ambitious RES deployment is still economically viable when
>> grid costs are accounted for.
>>
>>
>> Key insights:
>>
>> Under an ambitious RES pathway (80% RES by 2040), the total system
>> costs are lower than under a slower transition scenario.
>>
>> Grid investments are inevitable anyway – replacing old
>> infrastructure and making it ready for new demand will cost around
>> EUR 80 billion by 2040.
>>
>> Spending ~EUR 10 bn more on grids pays off – this enables
>> deployment of greater capacity of low-cost wind & solar power and
>> results in lower unit cost of supplied electricity.
>>
>> Joint generation and grid expansion planning can unlock >EUR 25
>> billion in savings.
>>
>> The takeaway for modellers and planners: integrated, nodal, and
>> open modelling matters. When grids, generation and flexibility are
>> treated jointly, the “hidden cost” narrative around grids and RES
>> simply doesn’t hold.
>>
>>
>> Materials:
>>
>>
>> Charts <https://drive.google.com/drive/
>> folders/1fMVBsq70R5R7chuBYpVtmSkHPuYMX5T6?usp=sharing>
>>
>> Linkedin <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fundacja-instrat_can-save-
>> over-25-billion-euros-on-activity-7424402903097892864-OY8O?
>> utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABRo_YIBAR301g7gJYqeoe3UGrSSvfgKUGI>
>>
>> If you have any questions, feel free to email me or the main author,
>>
>> Regards,
>> *Patryk Berus*
>> Head of Communications
>> *Instrat*
>> www.instrat.pl <https://www.instrat.pl> | energy.instrat.pl <https://
>> energy.instrat.pl> | esg.instrat.pl <https://esg.instrat.pl>
>> twitter <https://twitter.com/fundacjainstrat> | linkedin <https://
>> www.linkedin.com/company/fundacja-instrat/>
>> <http://www.instrat.pl>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "openmod initiative" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to openmod-initiat...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
>> openmod-initiative/
>> CAJ8Gta3e_g14GL5siAt6A3rd-8ps8MxZF69pWNcbY0bhqZTGdA%40mail.gmail.com
>> CAJ8Gta3e_g14GL5siAt6A3rd-8ps8MxZF69pWNcbY0bhqZTGdA%40mail.gmail.com?
>> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
> --
> Robbie Morrison
> Address: Schillerstrasse 85, 10627 Berlin, Germany
> Phone: +49.30.612-87617
>
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "openmod initiative" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to openmod-initiat...@googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openmod-initiative/ac88115c-
> a6c6-45da-b852-96b5d8e566d3%40posteo.de?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
--
Tom Brown (he/him)
Professor of Digital Transformation in Energy Systems
Institute of Energy Engineering
Technische Universität Berlin
Group website: https://www.tu.berlin/en/ensys
Personal website: https://nworbmot.org/
Patryk Kubiczek
thanks for your kind words. We finally made it to include spatial disaggregation and grids in our sector-coupled model for Poland.
Regarding SNSP, that is a quite an intriguing and relevant topic and actually we (Instrat) have been appliying SNSP limits to the Polish power system starting from this 2023 report: https://instrat.pl/en/baseload-power/ (sorry, the full report in Polish only).
However, I do agree with Tom that applying strict SNSP limits for individual countries that are part of a larger synchronous system is problematic - they can still rely on e.g. inertia provided by interconnected countries. In Poland, however, the TSO seems to follow some rather strict rules how much conventional (mostly coal-based) generation has to be present in the system at any time and this is the main reason for relatively high RES curtailment at the moment.
"Reaching, by 2035, the Polish Power System's ability to operate safely and steadily in a zero-emission energy mix."
which exactly addresses this issue.
Best,
Patryk
Gjalt Huppes
“ deepen our understanding of fragility and robustness in complex economic systems. Research in this area often abstracts from much of the detail of specific contexts, modeling relationships of complementarity and substitutability between the components in simple ways.” (Elliott & Golub p. 666). Abstracting must remain within assumptions favoring robustness, without over investment.
Thanks for your discussions,
Gjalt
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Robbie Morrison
Hi Gjalt, all
Dear Robbie, dear All, says this outsider,
Welcome! Some external heresy is always useful. ;-)
The preconditions for modelling should not stick to current inadequate structures in grid and grid management.
I think there are usually quite a range of potential solutions and technologies being explored within this community. Spaced-based energy harvest for one, static HVDC for another:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZWoY5i861w
- https://forum.openmod.org/t/steady-state-hvdc-modelling/1978
Admittedly, some of the models do try to capture the status quo and some forward projection thereof to create a reference case for analysis by comparison. Defining a counterfactual is always problematic in modeling though (and more so in real life).
Regarding electricity system architectures, just this morning Prof Jutta Hanson (not part of the openmod community) was arguing that electricity systems should naturally "island" in the face of component failures:
- ESYS (9 February 2026). Stromausfall in Berlin — Wie resilient ist unsere Stromversorgung wirklich? [Power outage in Berlin — how resilient is our power supply really?] (in German). Akademienprojekt "Energiesysteme der Zukunft" [Energy systems of the future] (ESYS). Berlin, Germany. ESYS Deep Dive webinar of duration 01:30.
TSOs seem an outdated set-up for a cost-effective European structure. See the Spanish experience of last year's breakdown. Planning in a highly centralized and decentralized system will become ever more complex.With low cost HVDC long distance transport (as operational and fast expanding in China) and HVDC also taking over much of current HVAC lines, synchronisation becomes a very different game.Fast switches at all voltage levels allow for automatic equilibration, especially if secondary production becomes very low-cost as in using multi-functional car-batteries, and if enduse becomes price-based variable, including heat pumps with storage and internet of things options.
I agree with everything you write. And one can add smart metering to the list.
Real-time pricing becomes a must. Going in this direction would also require adaptations in the tax system which now easily leads to double taxation for secondary production.
Taxation policy is usually above my paygrade. But an equitable rate of tax on aviation fuel would surely help.
The more abstract approach as by Elliott and Golub seem more relevant for the long-term electricity case. See their https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics051520-021647, where sadly electricity is not mentioned. (Thanks Robbie for your reference to Elliot) A quote:“ deepen our understanding of fragility and robustness in complex economic systems. Research in this area often abstracts from much of the detail of specific contexts, modeling relationships of complementarity and substitutability between the components in simple ways.” (Elliott & Golub p. 666). Abstracting must remain within assumptions favoring robustness, without over investment.
Thanks for your discussions,
Gjalt
That DOI above is missing a hyphen. The cite is:
- Elliott, Matthew and Benjamin Golub (12 August 2022). "Networks and economic fragility". Annual Review of Economics. 14 (Volume 14, 2022): 665–696. ISSN 1941-1383, 1941-1391. doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-051520-021647. CC‑BY‑4.0 licensing.
best, Robbie