Which wind and solar modelling choices matter? Effects on capacity factors, energy droughts and European power system configuration
Europe's future power system will rely heavily on wind and solar power and must remain resilient during prolonged periods of low wind and solar generation, known as variable renewable energy (VRE) droughts. To capture such rare events, adequacy assessments increasingly draw on decades of weather data, but the conversion of weather into power is largely treated as fixed. It remains unclear which modelling choices in this conversion matter for representing these droughts, and whether they matter as much as the weather itself. Here we systematically compare these choices side by side (bias correction, wind speed extrapolation, capacity layouts, turbine and photovoltaic configurations, and wake losses) and trace their effects through VRE droughts to the design of a net-zero European power system, using 85 years of reanalysis data. We find that modelling choices barely change how often VRE droughts occur or when the system is stressed. They do, however, determine how much capacity is needed to withstand that stress. By altering the electricity delivered during droughts, they shift required capacity by up to 480 GW, which is comparable to the spread across the most critical weather years. Modelling exercises should therefore use multiple weather years; bias-correct and regionally validate weather inputs; explicitly represent resource heterogeneity, forward-looking technologies, and wake losses; and judge these choices by their effect on the low-generation tail, not only on the mean.