Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Exporting sunshine: Planning South America’s electricity transition with

green hydrogen
Antonio Galván a, Jannik Haas a, b, *, Simón Moreno-Leiva a, Juan Carlos Osorio-Aravena c, d,
Wolfgang Nowak a, Rodrigo Palma-Benke e, Christian Breyer f
a
Department of Stochastic Simulation and Safety Research for Hydrosystems (IWS/SC SimTech), University of Stuttgart, Germany
b
Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
c
Innovative Energy Technologies Center, Universidad Austral de Chile, Campus Patagonia s/n, Coyhaique 5950000, Chile
d
University of Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas s/n, Jaén 23071, Spain
e
Department of Electrical Engineering, Energy Center, FCFM, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
f
School of Energy Systems, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland

H I G H L I G H T S

• To date the most complete model for planning South America’s power sector.
• South America’s transition relies on solar, wind, and gas as bridging technology.
• Lithium batteries and pumped hydro are the main storage technologies.
• Modeling 30 nodes is a good trade-off between complexity and quality of results.
• Hydrogen exports aid the integration of renewable generation.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Europe and North America have numerous studies on 100% renewable power systems. South America, however,
Climate change lacks research on zero-carbon energy systems, especially understanding South America as an interconnected
System analysis region, despite its great renewable energy sources, increasing population, and economic productivity.
Expansion planning
This work extends the cost-optimization energy planning model LEELO and applies it to South America. This
Clean technologies
Green hydrogen
results in the to-date most complete model for planning South America’s power sector, with a high temporal
South America’s electricity transition (8760 time steps per year) and spatial (over 40 nodes) resolution, and 30 technologies involved. Besides the base
case, we study how varying spatial resolution for South America impacted investment results (43, 30, 16, 1
node). Finally, we also evaluate green hydrogen export scenarios, from 0% to 20% on top of the electricity
demand.
Our study reveals that South America’s energy transition will rely, in decreasing order, on solar photovoltaic,
wind, gas as bridging technology, and also on some concentrated solar power. Storage technologies equal to
about 10% of the total installed power capacity would be required, aided by the existing hydropower fleet. Not
only is the transition to renewables technically possible, but it is also the most cost-efficient solution: electricity
costs are expected to reach 32 €/MWh from the year 2035 onwards without the need for further fossil fuels.
Varying the spatial resolution, the most-resolved model (43 nodes) reveals 11% and 6% more costs than the
one-node and one-node-per-country (16) models, respectively, with large differences in investment recommen­
dations, especially in concentrated solar and wind power. The difference between 43 and 30 nodes is negligible
in terms of total costs, energy storage, and technology mix, indicating that 30 nodes are an adequate resolution
for this region. We then use the 30-node model to analyze hydrogen export scenarios. The electricity costs drop,
as hydrogen is not only a load but also a flexibility provider. Most green hydrogen is produced in Chile,

* Corresponding author at: Department of Stochastic Simulation and Safety Research for Hydrosystems (IWS/SC SimTech), University of Stuttgart, Germany.
E-mail address: jannik.haas@canterbury.ac.nz (J. Haas).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119569
Received 7 February 2022; Received in revised form 3 May 2022; Accepted 26 June 2022
Available online 24 August 2022
0306-2619/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Galván et al.
Argentina, and northeast Brazil. For future work, we propose to do an integrated energy plan, including transport
and heat, for the region, as well as modeling local hydrogen demands. This work aims to inform policymakers of
sustainable transitions, and the energy community.
1. Introduction
Defossilization of our economy must be accelerated to mitigate
global warming [1]. As over 70% of greenhouse gas emissions come
from the energy sector [2], strategies for transitioning to renewable
energy (RE) are urgent. Hansen, et al. [3] compiles 180 studies about the
status and perspectives on fully RE systems around the globe. They
conclude that developed regions, such as Australia (40 publications),
Europe (more than 100), and North America (40) have a good scientific
basis to provide decision-makers with knowledge for planning RE sys­
tems. However, developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and
South America have not been deeply studied. Only two studies have
assessed a regional interconnection of South America based on 100% RE
systems [4–5]. Developing regions have special importance in the RE
transition due to their high potential for renewable power sources,
growing economies, and increasing population during the next decades
[6–8]. South America already has a high share of renewable energy in its
grids. In fact, they currently have the highest share reached by any major
region in the world [9] mainly due to hydropower production [10].
While it might seem direct to use the vast RE potential [11] to defossilize
the system, to supply the increasing electricity demand, and eventually
to export energy to the rest of the world, a clear strategy has yet to be
developed.
1.1. Literature review
Hansen et al. [3] analyze the existing studies on 100% RE systems
around the world (Fig. 1) and it is the article with the most compiled
studies on that subject up to date. The study identifies the main gaps
when researching on fully renewable systems: (1) not including multi­
sector approaches, (2) vague analysis about the future energy grids
configurations, (3) leaving out demand management as a strategy to
better implement renewable sources, (4) lack of clarity about the tran­
sition process from fossil- to renewable-based power, (5) simulations
without high temporal and spatial resolution at once, (6) and the low
number of research considering interconnected power systems beyond
international borders, especially in major regions like South America
and sub-Saharan Africa.
Fig. 1. Studies on planning fully renewable energy systems around the world. Based on Hansen k. et al., 2019.
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Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
The specific case of South America is the target of our study. A few
studies –from a continental (North, Central, and South America com­
bined) [4–5] [and global studies perspective [12] – have included this
region as an interconnected energy system based on fully renewable
sources in the analysis. However, only one was identified with a specific
focus on this region. This single study by Barbosa et al. [5] simulated a
power system for South America as an interconnected region, consid­
ering 100% RE sources and utilizing 15 nodes with hourly resolution
until the year 2030. Their model [13] was developed at the LUT. It
included information from conversion technologies, transmission lines,
energy storage, and sector bridging technologies. It also covered the
electricity demand, non-energetic industrial gas demand, and power
demand for water desalination, with the main goal of minimizing the
total costs of the system. The LUT model uses solar, wind, and hydro­
power generators complemented by thermal, waste, and biomass elec­
tricity sources. Even though this model can simulate the power system of
South America America with hourly resolution, the lack of finer dis­
aggregated data has limited the spatial resolution to one node per
country or subregion and the time horizon goes just until 2030. Barbosa
et al. [14] concluded that solar energy domains over the other tech­
nologies with a share up to 70%. They also found out that based on this
model, the levelized cost of the electricity decrease from 61.9 €/MWh to
46.6 €/MWh when considering that transmission lines interconnect the
nodes beyond political borders. A global perspective includes the basis
from these results and introduces the energy required for heating and
transport in the multisector approach for South America, as well as an
analysis on job generation from the implementation of the system [12].
A second study with a specific focus on South America, but only
planning a renewable share of 80%, was conducted on behalf of the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) [15], executed by Energy
Exemplar, Quantum America Corporation, University of Chile’s Energy
Center, and AWS Truepower. While the space is highly resolved (44
nodes in South America), the temporal resolution is limited to only six
time-slices per month, and it also goes just until 2030. The model is
based on PLEXOS [6], minimizes the system costs, and features elec­
tricity from coal, gas, oil, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass
sources. The study concludes that higher shares of RE in the grids lead to
additional costs due to new capacities installments mainly dominated by
A. Galván et al.
solar capacities. It also shows that the costs decrease when deploying
interconnections. Electricity costs seem to increase in the results, going
from 42 USD/MWh in 2020 to 64 USD/MWh in 2030, mainly explained
by high prices of fossil fuels.
While there are other planning efforts from the South American re­
gion, these refer to planning individual countries only and fail to un­
derstand South America as one integrated power system. Some examples
of these country planning exercises include Brazil [7], Chile [8,16–18]
Colombia [14], and Bolivia [19]. In short, energy scenarios for South
America are scarce, especially to an interconnected level.
Modeling such energy transitions requires intensive computing ca­
pacities. For a given computing capacity, the spatial and temporal res­
olution needs to be adjusted, even though it could affect the quality of
the outputs. The above mentioned LUT study on South America, for
example, used a high temporal (8760 sequential time steps per year) but
lower spatial resolution (15 nodes) while the IDB used a high spatial (63
nodes including Central America and Mexico, but forty-four for South
America) and a low temporal time resolution (72 time-slices per year).
Different publications on understanding these tradeoffs in modeling
resolution have been published on energy systems [20–23] again
focusing mainly on the U.S. and Europe. For South America, under­
standing the impact of varying spatial resolution is missing.
Within the power sector transition, hydrogen as a mean for long-term
storage is fundamental and has been identified as a non-regret option by
diverse studies [24–30]. But hydrogen can also play a role beyond the
pure power sector. When it comes to fully renewable energy systems,
green hydrogen, and the corresponding e-fuels [31] serve as a link be­
tween the sectors of transport, industry, and cities [32–34]. Under­
standing a hydrogen-based economy has been recently resurged around
the world [35–38]. For instance, countries in South America have
already started to work on national hydrogen strategies and roadmaps
based on the high potential for green and blue hydrogen export
[29–30,39] Here again, the literature exhibits country-specific studies,
with a South American strategy missing until now.
1.2. Research goals
More scientific evidence on fully renewable energy systems in South
America is necessary to provide decision-makers with a sound basis. A
combination of high temporal and spatial resolution dataset inputs for
this region is needed for the simulations so that reliable results can be
obtained. The integration of the South American region as a whole,
unifying international efforts to achieve an optimal power system is
required to line up the global interests against climate change.
Furthermore, hydrogen serves as a link not just to develop the South
American defossilization process across the different energy sectors, but
also to support a hydrogen-based economy across the world for demand
types that cannot be directly electrified.
This work contributes to the scientific literature by planning an
interconnected, 100% renewable power system with the highest tem­
poral and spatial resolution considered up to date for South America as a
whole, and by analyzing South America’s potential to export green
hydrogen. Concretely this work aims to:
▪ Plan the power transition of South America until 2050. This
requires modeling and setting up the corresponding database
(costs, wind, solar, hydropower, and demand profiles), target­
ing a resolution of 43 nodes across South America, with a fully
resolved year at hourly resolution (8760 sequential time steps).
▪ Understand the optimal spatial resolution needed to plan the
region’s electricity transition. For this, the spatial resolution of
the system will be varied systematically, considering 43, 30, 16,
and 1 node to quantify the induced error when simulating an
interconnected energy system in South America with a lower
number of regions.
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▪ Quantify the potential for green hydrogen export. For this,
different scenarios based on green hydrogen production of
10%, 15%, and 20% over the total electricity demand will be
analyzed.
1.3. Relevance
The gained insights aim to understand South America’s power
transition as an interconnected region, building on the fragmented
research efforts available to date. Additionally, this paper investigates
for the first time in South America, the production of green hydrogen.
Finally, this work stimulates further investigation by providing open
access to the used inputs and models and produced outputs.
After the current section, the methodology is presented in Section 2
with a focus on the developed optimization model and datasets. Section
3 presents the results with their respective discussions. Section 4 con­
cludes and provides recommendations for future work.
2. Methods
The current work relies on traditional methods from energy system
analysis, further developing an optimization model for expansion
planning. Here, we extended LEELO (Long-term Energy Expansion
Linear Optimization) to apply it for the first time to South America.
Fig. 2 shows an overview of the implemented methodology.
LEELO was initially programmed for the electrical system in Chile
with a four-node resolution and described in detail in [8] and for this
work, it has been extended to a maximum spatial resolution of 43 nodes
and 8760 time steps (fully resolved year) to model the electricity system
for South America. The model was developed at the University of
Stuttgart based on the optimization software General Algebraic
Modeling System (GAMS) and solved with CPLEX from IBM.
LEELO is an optimization model, and as such is composed of an
objective function and constraints. The objective function minimizes the
investment and operational costs of the electricity system. Investments
are treated as annuities, taking into account the lifetime of technologies
and a constant interest rate. Operational costs included fixed and vari­
able costs, with the latter mainly being fuel costs of fossil power plants.
The main constraint for the model is the electricity demand: The pro­
duced electricity should equal the power demand in each node, aided by
energy storage and energy imports/exports over power lines, for every
hour. LEELO decides on six primary generators (solar photovoltaic,
wind, run-off-river, geothermal, biomass, and biogas), 16 converters
(water turbine and pumping, Li-ion charger and discharger, electrolyzer,
fuel cell, methanizer, regasification of liquified natural gas, gas turbine
open cycle, charger and discharger for Vanadium Redox battery, elec­
trical rod, solar array heliostat for concentrated solar power (CSP), CSP
steam turbine, CO2 direct air capture, and gas turbine combined cycle),
seven storage devices (PHES water reservoir, Li-ion battery storage,
hydrogen storage tank, methane storage tank, vanadium Redox flow
battery electrolyte, molten salts with CSP, and CO2 capture system), and
15 hydropower cascades. Depending on the spatial resolution can
choose to build out up to 75 interconnecting lines. A more detailed
description of the model formulation is available in [8]. For more details
on the inputs, we refer to Section 2.1.
LEELO uses a milestone-year approach (also called myopic optimi­
zation). In other words, the decisions of one target year are the inputs to
the next. We calculated one milestone-year every 5 years. For example,
the results from the year 2025 are inputs to the year 2030.
This section is divided into three subsections in direct correspon­
dence with the three research goals of this work. In Section 2.1, the
model development and database setup for simulating the base case
scenario are described, also including the inputs. In Section 2.2, the
dataset and the model are adapted to vary the spatial resolution from 43
to 30, 16, and 1 node, systematically simulating the aggregated energy
expansion planning for South America. And, in Section 2.3 several green
A. Galván et al.
Fig. 2. Implemented methodology.
hydrogen export scenarios are defined. Before diving in, we will briefly
summarize LEELO-South America.
2.1. Base case and model
A dataset compilation process was carried out over continental South
America. We gathered data from wind and solar energy production
profiles with hourly resolution, hydropower cascades, potential trans­
mission lines, existing installed capacities of hydro, solar, wind, gas, oil,
and carbon power generators, and the electricity demand with an hourly
resolution for a maximum spatial distribution of 43 nodes and 75 po­
tential transmission lines over the studied area. The compiled data was
taken from [20,35–38]. The dataset is framed initially in the maximum
number of nodes being 43, with an hourly resolution.
ELECTRICITY DEMAND data for the year 2020 is taken from [15]
for the initial 43 nodes across South America. The projected electricity
demand until 2050 was calculated assuming a constant growth rate for
each country also according to [15]. Concretely, the continent shows an
electricity demand of 1768 TWh/year in 2020 projected to 4212 TWh/
year in 2050. In other regions, such as Europe, the electricity demand
goes from 3595 TWh/year in 2020 to 5112 TWh/year in 2050 [40],
while in North America it goes from 5000 TWh/year in 2020 [41] to
6250 TWh/year in 2050 [42]. Small electricity shares stemming from
dispatchable technologies, such as nuclear power, have been subtracted
from these demand profiles (this is a model simplification aiming to keep
reasonable solving times).
HYDROPOWER CASCADES were obtained from [15]. Information
regarding installed capacities, reservoir volumes, dams’ height, and
inflow profiles for 461 hydro generators over South America was gath­
ered. Our work considered one equivalent hydrogenerator per country
but four in Brazil. The inflow profiles were calculated based on the ones
found in [15] and were also aggregated based on the installed capacity
of their respective dams. All the installed capacity of hydropower by
country is considered in the model, and the inflow profiles of the
equivalent hydro generators were calculated based on the 461 genera­
tors previously identified. The power outputs of the resulting equivalent
generators were calibrated based on the hydropower generation in the
region according to reference [43], using the year 2020. The model can
decide to increase the installed capacity up to 50% and not more, trying
to reflect the strong social opposition and cost-overruns that hydro­
power is facing in the region.
SOLAR AND WIND generators require power output profiles based
on the climatological conditions in the surrounding area. The online
simulator renewable.ninja was used [44]. This tool allows generating the
wind energy output simulating a turbine Vesta V90-200, with a height
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Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
equal to 80 m. Solar photovoltaic (PV) generation profiles were based on
a single-axis tracking system. In both cases, the simulator produces the
outputs at any given location with hourly resolution. For this study,
three different profiles for wind and solar were assigned to each node, all
of them produced in locations near the node. CSP generation profiles
were produced by the System Advisor Model (SAM) provided by NREL
[45].
POTENTIAL TRANSMISSION LINES are proposed connections be­
tween nodes at a national and international level. LEELO models them as
a transport system (i.e., with a maximum transmission capacity but
without considering voltage levels and phase angles). Their maximum
allowed capacities go from 5 to 10 GW (all equals in each stretch for the
same scenario). These values depend on the scenario since for finer
spatial resolution the number of transmission lines is higher. Therefore,
less installed capacity compared to a lower spatial resolution to transmit
a comparable amount of electricity over the same region. Energy losses
are modeled as linear: 1.5% of the transmitted electricity per 1000 km of
length. New transmission lines, and their installed capacity, are imple­
mented based on the proposed potential transmission lines (see Fig. 2)
for each scenario.
STORAGE AND CONVERSION TECHNOLOGIES The model in­
cludes different storage technologies such as Li-ion battery energy sys­
tems (BESS), pumped-hydro energy storage (PHES), hydrogen-based
storage (H2), molten salts, CO2 storage, and methane storage tanks. The
technical potential for BESS is unlimited, however, the energy-to-power
ratio is constrained between 1 and 6 h, reflecting current market trends.
Hydrogen storage has no constraints and includes 2 possible chain
processes with electrolyzer - H2 - fuel cells, and electrolyzer – H2 –
methanizer – gas turbine (later in our green hydrogen export scenarios,
Section 2.3, we will extract H2 from tanks). PHES is limited due to its
current low application in South America [43] (around 1 GW of installed
capacity in the complete region) and despite its high potential [46], and
its energy-to-power ratio between 1 and 20 h. Further technical de­
scriptions of the storage and conversion systems can be found in [8].
COST ASSUMPTIONS regarding fixed and operation costs for each
technology were used in the same way as in Haas et al. [8], which in turn
uses the data from LUT’s team [12]. In general, these cost projections
have been validated in numerous peer-reviewed publications
[4–5,7,13,17,33,47]. The assumed costs for the considered technologies
have fixed and variable components. Projections for both components
were made for every milestone year from 2025 until 2050 (every
5 years). Carbon tax prices were also projected in the model going from
8,6 €/ton CO2 in 2025 to 29,1 €/ton CO2 in 2050 as implemented in [8].
Transmission line costs were conservatively taken from the IDB report
[15].
A. Galván et al.
The database is available online [48]. The most important assump­
tions are also included as supplementary material.
Our model has 29 investment decisions per node, plus 75 candidate
transmission lines, and 15 hydrogenerators, resulting in more than 1330
investment decisions in the case of the highest resolution. This equates
to about 120 GB of RAM to simulate one milestone year.
2.2. Spatial resolution (grid topology)
The input data was systematically aggregated and adapted to smaller
spatial resolutions of 30, 16, and 1 node starting from the maximum
possible distribution of 43 nodes. These scenarios aim to understand
how different spatial resolution impacts power system planning, which
is highly relevant for example when computing capacity is limited
(either by hardware or by solvers), or when input data is scarce. Fig. 3
shows the different spatial configurations and the proposed transmission
lines for each of the simulated scenarios.
For the 30-nodes scenario, neighboring buses were grouped, by
assigning buses with the least electricity demand to their neighbors with
higher power demand. Energy output profiles from solar and wind
sources were allocated in the proximities of the remaining nodes. A total
number of 70 potential interconnecting lines were proposed to provide
electricity exchange between the 30 nodes. The 16-nodes scenario ap­
plies the same approach, but only considers 1 node by country, except
for Brazil which was divided into 4 regions due to its large size. 27
potential transmission lines were proposed in this scenario. The last
scenario considers only 1 node for the whole South American region,
aggregating the total electricity demand in one node. The energy output
profiles for wind and solar were taken as an average of all the gathered
information across the 13 countries.
All the scenarios were simulated using 15 aggregated hydropower
generators, calculating one by country - except Brazil which has 4, and
Paraguay was assigned to Brazil. Wind and solar energy output profiles
in South America, aggregated inflows for hydropower, potential trans­
mission lines, existing installed capacities, and projected electricity de­
mand with hour resolution are available in [48].
2.3. Hydrogen export scenarios
Four scenarios of hydrogen export are defined, going from 0% (no
extra electricity for hydrogen), to 10%, 15%, and 20% of electricity
investment over the additional electricity demand to produce hydrogen.
Note that these amounts of hydrogen are on top of those being needed
for keeping the South American system functioning (power to hydrogen
to power). The scenarios analyze the differences in installed capacities,
Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of the simulated scenarios for South America.
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electricity generation, system costs, and electricity prices between the
systems.
The exports are set to start in 2020 until the end of the horizon time
in 2050. This implies that the hydrogen will only be fully “green” when
the whole electricity supply has been defossilized, which does not fully
hold in the early years.
The used model setup for the simulation uses 30 nodes and the
hydrogen can be produced with no prescribed restrictions in each of
those nodes (see Fig. 3 for 30 nodes). The produced hydrogen remains in
those points and the process is simulated until it gets out of the
electrolyzer.
3. Results and discussion
This section is divided into 3 parts, each directly related to our
research questions. First, the results of the base case (Section 2.1) for the
fully renewable system in South America are presented. Second, the
impact of varying the spatial resolution (from Section 2.2) is discussed.
And final, we present the outputs of the hydrogen export scenarios
related to Section 2.3.
3.1. Pathway for South America in the base case scenario
This subsection discusses the installed capacities of generation
technologies followed by storage technologies, the regional overview of
these investments, and financial results.
Generation technologies. Fig. 4 (left) shows the cumulative
installed capacities for the different electricity generators from 2025 to
2050 (starting with existing installed capacities by 2020). The results
show that solar energy becomes the most installed technology in 2025,
exceeding the current dominance of hydropower. The installed capac­
ities progressively increase becoming the second most important tech­
nology after 2040. Gas generators have at the beginning of 2020 the
second most installed capacity (27%) after hydropower (48%). How­
ever, as shown below, the model continues recommending new gas in­
vestment and after 2045, gas generators represent the third most
installed capacity. Note that after 2040, we allowed only synthetic
methane (based on green hydrogen). The model does not recommend
building out hydropower (it remains with the original installed capacity
during the whole planning horizon as the fourth-largest capacity). This
results from hydropower competing against low-cost solar and wind
technologies. Coal generation decreases over time, being negligible after
the year 2030, and completely removed from the system in 2040. At the
end of the design period, 58% of the installed capacities account for
solar (51% PV and 7% CSP), 19% for wind, 13% gas (working as part of
A. Galván et al.
Fig. 4. Cumulative installed capacity (left) and electricity generation (right) by power generator per year.
the storage system after 2040), and 10% hydro generators.
Differences between the plant factors or uses among the different
generation technologies when generating power lead to a difference in
shares if it is compared to their respective installed capacities. This
observation is more visible with solar PV for which the installed capacity
share accounts for 51% but their power generation share is 36%. In
terms of electricity generation, as shown in Fig. 4 (right), wind and solar
sources increase dramatically from 2025 to 2050. While hydropower is
dominant in the year 2025, solar and wind generation quickly exceed it
five years later. By the year 2050, solar PV is the dominant technology
(over 35%), followed by wind power (24%), gas (20%) - with all the fuel
being synthetic methane produced based on green hydrogen and the
captured CO2 involving electrolyzer, direct air carbon capture, and
methanizer but working within the storage system after 2040 -, hydro­
power (16%), and CSP (2%). Note that the use of gas grows by a factor of
4, showing that for South America it is a bridging technology. Coal-
based power (only 5% of the total energy share in the region) shows
some generation until the year 2040 (when the phase-out is forced), but
its generation already becomes negligible by the year 2030, with plant
factors that seem uneconomic. This could indicate a market-driven coal
phase-out, with the risk of stranded assets.
Storage technologies. Fig. 5 (left) shows the required installed ca­
pacities for the charging devices associated with each storage technol­
ogy. Strong investments in storage reflect the need for flexibility in
highly renewable systems. The most installed storage interface is
lithium-ion batteries with the highest share of 78% at the end of the
design period in 2050. The second most installed capacity interface
corresponds to PHES with a relative share of 17%. Fig. 5 (center) shows
Fig. 5. Installed capacity by charger technology (left), cumulative energy capacity (center), and energy output by discharger (right).
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Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
the cumulative energy capacity by storage technology in MWheq. Note
that the model decides to deploy the maximum prescribed potential of
PHES (150 GWheq). This threshold was established due to its low
implementation popularity as stated in Section 2.1. Gas storage becomes
more important in the energy storage capacity system as seasonal stor­
age requires very often huge (but very low-cost) energy storage capacity.
CO2 storage, while not an energy-storage technology, requires signifi­
cant amounts of energy for methanizing the produced hydrogen; the
total methane tank capacity on the other hand is rather small. The total
deployed storage capacity by the year 2050 of 210 GW has the same
order of magnitude as hydropower (177 GW), showing that hydropower
is a strong but not sufficient source of flexibility.
Electricity output from the storage technologies is mainly coming
from lithium batteries and hydropower sources as it is shown in Fig. 5
(right). In the year 2050, the ratio between the stored energy delivered
to the grid and the annual total demand is equal to 3%.
Sub-regional analysis. The installed capacities in the year 2050 by
region are presented in Fig. 6 (left). Regions like the south, southeast,
and northeast of Brazil, as well as Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and
Colombia install the greatest amount of primary electricity generators
for solar, wind, and gas, complementing the existing installed capacities
for hydropower. Installed capacities of solar generators have a clear
dominance in the north, south, and southeast of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador,
and Chile; Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay tend to install more wind
generators. Produced solar power follows the same pattern of domi­
nance in the same sectors where its installed capacity also domains,
however, the share is less since the yield of this technology is lower
compared to the other generators. Wind power is produced almost to the
A. Galván et al.
Fig. 6. Installed capacities technology-wise in 2050 (left), main cumulative electricity balances until 2050 (center) and installed capacities for transmission lines
(right) in South America in 2050.
same relative share as it is installed in Argentina, Uruguay, and
Paraguay. Hydropower production share becomes important in the
northeast, north, and south of Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Colombia
despite smaller installed capacity.
Fig. 6 (center) shows that the region with the most electricity surplus
is the northeast of Brazil due to its high electricity generation compared
to the relatively low power demand. Argentina and Chile, where high
energy potential for wind and solar sources are available, have both high
cumulative electricity surplus during the time horizon. Regions with
electricity deficits are the southeast and north of Brazil. (For the rest of
the regions, the difference between produced and consumed electricity
is rather small, below 30 TWh.) To balance these deficits, strong trans­
mission lines need to be deployed as shown in the right panel of Fig. 6,
for the year 2050. Recall, that the maximum capacity for interconnec­
tion lines is equal to 5 GW. These 5 GW lines are deployed forming an
Fig. 7. Annualized electricity costs for the main contributors (left) and levelized electricity costs for existing studies (right, starting in 2020 for comparison porpoises)
in the RE system for South America.
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Atlantic corridor spreading from the northeast of Brazil to Buenos Aires,
that then connects latitudinally to Santiago de Chile. While there also is
a Pacific corridor, it is smaller: 1 GW.
System costs. Our model projects total costs (investment and oper­
ation) of 601.7 billion euros, starting in 2020 until the year 2050, for an
interconnected and fully renewable electricity system for South Amer­
ica. This system accounts for the increasing power demand, which we
assumed to grow by 3-fold as mentioned in Section 2.1. Fig. 7 (left)
shows that the greatest contribution to the annualized costs is produced
by the installments and operation of the power generators (including
renewables and gas), followed by the costs related to storing energy.
Fig. 7 (right) presents the annual electricity costs for the RE system.
Electricity costs start at 43.6 €/MWh, reaching their minimum level in
2045 with 30.9 €/MWh and finalizing in 2050 with 31.5 €/MWh. Given
that solar and wind technologies predominate in the grid and the costs of
A. Galván et al.
these technologies decrease over time, the cost of the generated elec­
tricity also decreases until 2050 when older technologies are phased out.
Note that while we forced the phase-out of fossil gas by 2040, the system
costs still decreased in 2045, indicating that this assumption will not
significantly impact the continent’s electricity costs; however, it in­
creases by 2% again due to the substantial need for power for producing
synthetic methane as a reaction to the still increasing power demand.
Discussion. Solar energy very often constitutes the most important
installed capacity and power generator in fully RE systems around the
world. Studies in Europe [47], North America [49], West Asia and
Australia [50], and South America itself [4–5,15] have proved the
dominance of solar power in future defossilized energy systems. Our
findings are in line with these results. Regarding storage technologies,
the same studies reveal the significance of lithium-ion batteries and
PHES as storage for high shares of renewable energy. Again, our findings
are in line with these.
Our results show that a fully renewable energy system will need a
total of 1743 GW of installed capacity for power generators, producing
4440 TWh/year in 2050, consistent with an average capacity factor of
30%. Bogdanov et al. [51] published a global perspective on multi-
sector RE systems through different regions in which South America
would install 2661 GW to produce 5529 TWh/year also in 2050. These
results are similar despite the low primary power demand in that study
because of the assumed increase in efficiency (high level of electrifica­
tion associated to LUT’s multisector approach). Quantum et. al [15]
presented a total installed capacity equal to 499 GW to produce 1800
TWh/year of electricity for South America in 2030; the study of De
Moura et. al [52] needs 770 GW of installed capacities generating 3250
TWh/year of primary energy in 2058 for South America. These last two
studies however are not fully renewable energy systems and operate
with fossil fuels, which impact the total required capacities when they
are compared to our results.
Results from [51] suggest a total investment of around 890b€ in 2050
related exclusively to the infrastructure for the highly electrified sce­
nario in South America and it is comparable to our results of 601.7b€,
considering the mentioned efficiency of the cited study due to its mul­
tisector approach. Electricity costs from in the same study also suggest
an electricity price decrease from 75 €/MWh in 2020 to 38 €/MWh in
2050 which are slightly higher than ours (37,3 and 31,5 €/MWh in 2025
and 2050, respectively). This 20% of difference might well be due to the
different spatial resolutions and cost assumptions. Ours can capture the
excellent solar conditions in the deserts of South America (as well as the
required transmission systems). Indeed, our cost results are more similar
to recent studies for Bolivia [19] and Chile [18], both based on renew­
able energy sources and with a multisector approach, full sector
coupling, and the latest cost assumptions. The system LCOE in [19]
decreases from about 41 €/MWh in 2025 to about 33 €/MWh and in [18]
from about 51 €/MWh in 2025 to about 26 €/MWh.
The simulations for the scenario with high penetration of RE equal to
80% in the grids with a time horizon until 2030 presented in [15] shows
a total cost for the system and electricity costs increasing from 42,8
USD/MWh in 2020 until 64,3 USD/MWh in 2030. This increase in costs
over time is explained by an increase in fuel prices for the still high
production of fossil-based energy; it is very clear, however, that these
prices are the lowest within the modeled scenarios since they come from
a setup with the highest share of renewable sources.
In terms of storage requirements, diverse studies on fully renewable
systems, as synthesized by the review [53] indicate 150 to 400 GW for
systems with a strong solar share for Europe and 300 to 450 GW for the
U.S. Our study recommended 200 GW of storage in addition to the 180
GW of hydropower, totaling a comparable size, 370 GW, for a system
with a to-expected similar demand by 2050.
Summary. South America’s electricity transition based on fully
renewable sources is not only technically feasible but also the most cost-
efficient solution, being aligned with the evidence for other continents.
Electricity costs should quickly fall to and stabilized around 32 €/MWh
8
Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
by the year 2035. The transition relies mainly on solar PV and wind with
gas as bridging technology. Brazil, Peru, Chile, and southeast Brazil are
strong solar producers. Hydropower as a flexibility source is of the same
order as all other storage combined. Li-ion is the most-deployed storage
technology, supported by pumped hydro in the early years. In terms of
interconnections, the model recommends a strong Atlantic corridor, a
horizontal Brazil-Argentina-Chile axis, and a smaller Pacific corridor.
3.2. Relevance of higher spatial resolution in energy planning
This section analyses the differences in modeling South America’s
electricity system with 1, 16, 30, and 43 nodes. We will discuss the
differences in terms of installed capacities, generated electricity, total
costs, and electricity costs.
Installed capacities. The total installed capacities by the year 2050
for all generators are presented in Fig. 8 (left). All scenarios show
comparable installed capacities around 1800 ± 25 GW. The differences,
however, arise in the mix. While the 43-node model recommends 133
GW of CSP, this capacity decrease to only 15 GW in the 1-node model.
Wind energy shows the opposite trend, and gas shows variations without
a discernible trend. The results between the 30 and 43-nodes models are
very similar. In terms of transmission lines (Fig. 8, right), they range
between 170 and 230 GW for the models 16 and 43-nodes (with the 1-
node model inherently having no transmission lines).
Electricity generation. Power generation for each scenario is shown
in Fig. 9 (left). Generation from solar and wind slightly increases when
comparing 43-nodes with 1-node, while decreases by a third. CSP is
absent in the 1-node model. Power from hydro and coal remains con­
stant as they have the same installed capacities independent of the
spatial resolution. In terms of stored energy over a year, Fig. 9 (right)
shows that all models except for the 16-node, indicate use of 540 to 690
TWh per year. Again, the 43-nodes and 30-nodes models show very
similar results.
These results show that the higher spatial resolutions, the better the
model captures the opportunities for transmission in trade-off with less
storage. In other words, a higher-resolved model tilts the balance from
storing local production to exporting it.
System costs. Total costs for the different simulated power systems
based on the spatial resolution are presented in Fig. 10 (left). Modeling
South America with only one node underestimates the total costs in the
system by about 10%. As the spatial resolution increases, more costs in
the system start to be revealed. The scenario with 43 nodes shows a more
detailed distribution of the costs within the system with the highest level
equal to 601.7b€.
Similarly, average electricity costs per scenario, Fig. 10 (right), are
higher when the spatial resolution is higher. Also here, there is very little
difference, less than 1%, between the 43-nodes, and 30-nodes models.
Discussion. Different studies have been published, in which the ef­
fects of the spatial resolution and number of transmission lines over fully
renewable energy grids have been assessed. Martínez-Gordón, et al. [20]
provide a comprehensive literature review on the spatial resolutions of
energy models. Ref. [21] for instance points out the two main conse­
quences of reducing the spatial resolution when modeling RE systems:
an increase in solar and wind expansion capacity, and a decrease of
installed transmission, which indeed is mirrored in our results (Fig. 8).
Previous studies analyzing the spatial resolution [21–22] have also
concluded that energy systems with coarser resolution overestimate the
total costs by up to 10% [22], explained mainly by the oversized ca­
pacities for solar and wind technologies. In contrast, Fig. 10 shows that
the total system costs decrease with lower spatial resolution. This can be
explained by differences in clustering; as mentioned in [23], systematic
spatial resolution reductions may differ in their results depending on the
equivalent transmission lines and generation capacities in RE systems.
Our results might lead us to believe that the model prefers to use more
costly, local resources as the spatial resolution increases. Besides, a
higher number of nodes reflects a more realistic electricity exchange
A. Galván et al. Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569

Fig. 8. Total installed capacity for power generators (left) and total installed capacity for transmission (right) during the time horizon for the 4 scenarios.

Fig. 9. Total generated electricity (left) and total stored energy (right) for the complete design horizon for all scenarios.

Fig. 10. Total costs for the simulated systems (left) and levelized electricity costs based on the domestic power demand (right), per scenario.

9
A. Galván et al.
across the region, which increases the costs mainly due to the installed
capacities of transmission lines. Saturation points might exist where
increasing the interconnectivity between regions, will no longer affect
the costs in the system to a relevant level [54].
Summary. Modeling the South American system with 30 and 43
nodes represents no considerable discrepancies. The amount of gener­
ated power and total costs are almost identical, with differences below
1%. The main individual technologies between the models are also
within 5% of error. The saved computing time when modeling the sys­
tem with 30 nodes would be reduced by 30%, and the memory needs by
14% (although these values depend on how the clustering of the nodes is
done). On the other hand, modeling the South American power system
with only 1 or 16 nodes produces errors of as much as 10% in terms of
costs and up to 8% more installed power generator capacities. In some
cases, the recommended sizes can diverge significantly, for example, 16-
nodes doubles the installed storage capacity, (versus 43-nodes). 1-node
virtually has no CSP capacity and about 30% less gas capacity (versus
43-nodes).
3.3. Hydrogen export implications
This section will discuss the hydrogen export scenarios, in terms of
installed capacities, generated electricity, country of hydrogen produc­
tion, and costs. Besides the results for the simulation of the base case in
South America with no hydrogen export consideration (Section 3.1), we
defined three scenarios with increasing hydrogen production ranging
from 10%, 15%, and 20% of (new or on-top) electricity demand destined
to hydrogen.
Installed capacities and generated electricity. The differences
arising in installed capacities between our hydrogen export scenarios
(10, 15, 20%) relative to no hydrogen exports (0%) are shown in Fig. 10
(left), with the differences in electricity generation on Fig. 10 (right). For
the 10%, 15%, and 20% hydrogen scenarios, the total installed gener­
ation capacity increases by 9, 12, and 17% respectively. In terms of
electricity generation, these increments are 9%, 14%, and 19%
respectively.
As what refers to the technology mix, solar PV is the technology that
takes care of most energy provision for green hydrogen, followed by
wind, and CSP (although in terms of installed capacities CSP goes before
wind). Installed capacities of hydropower and coal remain constant by
assumption. Gas installed capacities decreases as more hydrogen is
exported. For the scenario with no extra hydrogen production, the
power-to-gas technology is used to balance the variable renewable en­
ergy sources and the inelastic power demand. However, producing more
hydrogen in the system decreases the need for flexible storage which, for
instance, reduces the of gas technologies.
Fig. 11 (right) reveals that Chile is the most cost-effective region for
Fig. 11. Results related to hydrogen export scenarios.
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Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
hydrogen production in South America when the highest electricity in­
vestment of 20% is considered; That is mainly explained by the intensive
potential for producing solar energy in regions like the Atacama Desert.
Argentina and the northeast of Brazil also produce considerable amounts
of hydrogen explained by high resources of wind and hydropower.
Taking a closer look at the time development, Chile starts with a modest
production in 2025, if compared to Argentina and Brazil, and only in the
year, 2035 cheaper PV energy allows Chile to become the main exporter.
It has to be recalled that the hydrogen export chain finalizes after its
production, and it remains on-site without considering its final use or
destination.
Costs. Total electricity costs, Fig. 12 (left), clearly increase when
more hydrogen is produced as a consequence of installing more capac­
ities. Total costs go up by 6, 9, and 13% respectively. From an average
electricity cost perspective, the costs decrease as more hydrogen is
produced, Fig. 12 (right). This reduction becomes more noticeable over
time. Average electricity costs are reduced by 4%, 5%, and 5% for the
hydrogen scenarios 10, 15, 20%, respectively. This cost decrease can be
explained by hydrogen technologies being a service to the system. The
produced hydrogen allows the system to become more flexible since it
serves as a bridging technology.
Discussion. This is the first study applied to South America that
evaluates scenarios of H2 production for exporting purposes. Never­
theless, Ram et al. [55] have estimated H2 production (and its derivates)
from a global perspective; in which South America emerge as one of the
key exporters, and, in line with our results, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil
are the main H2 producer countries of this region. According to Bog­
danov et al [51], South America H2 production reaches 870 TWh in a
fully defossilized energy system by 2050. This means that our result for
the 20% hydrogen scenario (800 TWh) would supply about 43% of that
H2 production.
In terms of electricity costs, Fasihi et al. [56] found that in South
America H2 based on hybrid PV-wind power plants can be produced
within a range of 46–33 €/MWh in 2030 and 34–28 €/MWh in 2050. Our
results (36–34 €/MWh and 33–29 €/MWh in 2030 and 2050, respec­
tively) are in line with those findings. However, optimized H2 produc­
tion sites based on large-scale solar PV, recent results show that in
Atacama H2 can be produced to 20 €/MWh in 2030 and 10 €/MWh in
2050 [57].
Reduction in gas technologies within the energy storage when
increasing the flexibility of the system has been previously observed.
Bogdanov et al. [58] observed that gas turbines would provide 2% of the
total electricity demand in 2050 as part of the seasonal storage but in an
energy system with no flexibilities (covering only the power sector).
Afterward, when adding the heating sector to the previously mentioned
study [58], it was observed that the gas turbine would reduce its
covering global demand to 0,49% [51].
A. Galván et al.
Fig. 12. Differences in costs for the hydrogen scenarios.
Summary. All green hydrogen scenarios can easily be accommo­
dated by the electricity system, with most production stemming from
solar PV. The electricity production costs drop (on a €/MWh basis)
because hydrogen is a load and a flexibility provider. Hence, producing
green hydrogen does not only open a new industry but also allows for a
cheaper electricity system. Until the year 2030, Chile, Argentina, and
the northeast of Brazil are all competing for hydrogen production. But in
the years to follow, Chile will have a competitive edge given the ever
becoming cheaper solar PV systems installed in the Atacama Desert; as
Fasihi et al. [56] and Vartiainen et al. [57] have found.
3.4. Limitations and outlook
While our work sets a milestone in modeling South America’s elec­
tricity transition, models for deriving future strategies permanently
show room for improvement. We envision three lines for future research.
The first line refers to extending the model to the sectors beyond
electricity [3,18–19,51]. Concretely, this involves transportation, heat,
and cold, as well as desalination plants in the water-stressed regions.
The second stream we propose is to refine the modeling of the
hydrogen production and the hydrogen demand chain [56,59–60]. In
the present work, we assumed a hydrogen production with a generic
electrolyzer, to be either exported as such or to be re-electrified via a fuel
cell or gas turbine prior to methanization. In practice, the alternatives
for production and demand are much more complex: think centralized
or distributed hydrogen production via a diversity of processes, or de­
mand for hydrogen in different forms of e-fuels (liquefied, methane,
Fischer-Tropsch liquids, or methanol), industries (green steel, e-fertil­
izers), and power applications (co-generation, or hydrogen gas
turbines).
The third aspect refers to uncertainties related to large and inter­
national project infrastructures. Not only face large projects a significant
risk of delays and cost overruns [61], but also a strong political risk with
“not in my term of office” behaviors [62]. Planning for such deep un­
certainties strategies that are adaptive (designs that are flexible to be
changed or adapted in the future) or robust (plans that perform well in
many futures) might be the corresponding next step [63].
Towards fully renewable systems, one aspect that is often pointed out
is system stability. While renewable systems are not automatically sta­
ble, the so-long feared instability in inertialess systems is unjustified
based on the current scientific evidence. References [64] and [65] show
how virtual or synthetic inertia from batteries is superior in all di­
mensions to the conventional or mechanic inertia of rotating generators.
Further synthetic inertia can be provided by operating wind and solar
systems in deload [66] and by electrolyzers [67]. All these technologies
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Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119569
are part of the found electricity transition of South America, which we
see as an excellent basis for system stability. Anecdotic evidence from
Australia’s system shows how an old conventional system was pushed to
a sound frequency within a couple of months by installing one battery
system (which in the year of installation 2018, was the largest battery
system worldwide, but is rather small by current metrics) [68].
We leave the model and data open to the energy community to
improve on these and other aspects.
4. Conclusions and future work
This work aims to fill the gap on (virtually absent) energy transition
strategies for South America. For this purpose, we enhanced and applied
our existing optimization model (LEELO) to South America, and offer
three contributions. First, with the new model (8760 time steps, over 40
nodes, over 30 technologies), we calculated the transition for the elec­
tricity sector. In our understanding this is the most complete study to
date on South America. Second, we assessed how varying the spatial
resolution (from 43 to 30, 16, and 1 nodes) impacts the investment re­
sults. And third, we evaluated three hydrogen export scenarios, ranging
from 10, 15, and 20% of the continent’s electricity demand (besides the
base case, 0% hydrogen exports).
We found that South America’s electricity transition, based on fully
renewable technologies, is not only technically possible (this finding is
aligned with the many studies available for Europe and the U.S.), but
also the most cost-efficient solution: electricity cost should quickly fall
below 33 €/MWh, by the year 2035, without the need for further fossil
fuels. The transition relies, in decreasing order, on solar PV, wind, gas
bridging technology, and also some concentrated solar power. Brazil,
Peru, and Chile are strong solar producers. Storage technologies equal
about 10% of the installed capacity. Li-ion is the most-deployed tech­
nology, supported by pumped hydro in the early years, and the existing
hydropower park. In terms of interconnections, the model recommends
a strong Atlantic corridor, a longitudinal Brazil-Argentina-Chile axis,
and a smaller Pacific corridor.
In terms of the different spatial resolutions, the most-resolved model
(43 nodes) revealed 11% and 6% more costs than the one-node and one-
node-per-country (16) models, respectively. Also, large differences in
investments arise: the more-resolved model recommends more concen­
trated solar in trade-off with wind power. In contrast, the differences
frbetweenhe 43-nodes and 30-nodes models are neglectable in terms of
most indicators: total costs, energy storage, and technology mix. Thus,
30 nodes seem to be an adequate resolution for South America.
With the 30-nodes model, we then analyzed the hydrogen export
scenarios. All green hydrogen scenarios (up to 20% of additional
A. Galván et al.
electricity demand for green hydrogen) can easily be accommodated in
the electricity system. The electricity production costs drop (on a
€/MWh basis) because hydrogen is a load and a flexibility provider.
Hence, producing green hydrogen does not only open a new industry but
also allows for a cheaper electricity system. Most green hydrogen comes
from solar PV and is produced in Chile, Argentina, and northeast Brazil.
For future work, we propose to do an integrated energy plan for
South America -including demands for transport, heat/cold, desalinated
water-, enhance the modeling of local hydrogen applications, as well as
capture uncertainties inherent to multi-national mega infrastructures.
This work aims to inform policymakers and the energy community
on sustainable transitions.
Data availability
The input and output data related to this paper is available open
access in Zenodo [48]. This includes information regarding hourly
electricity demand in South America projected until 2050, generation
profiles for solar and wind, hydropower cascades, existing capacities for
electricity generators, and potential transmission lines. The used model
is in the process of becoming open source.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Antonio Galván: Investigation, Data curation, Methodology, Formal
analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing. Jannik Haas: Conceptualization, Software, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
Visualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Simón Moreno-Leiva:
Conceptualization, Supervision. Juan Carlos Osorio-Aravena: Formal
analysis, Writing – original draft. Wolfgang Nowak: Supervision,
Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing. Rodrigo Palma-
Benke: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing.
Christian Breyer: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review
& editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
We appreciate the support of the German Research Foundation
[DFG-NO 805/11-1] and the Chilean National Commission of Technol­
ogy and Science [CONICYT/FONDAP/15110019 and CONICYT/FON­
DECYT/1211968].
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119569.
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