Optimization and simulation analysis of the energy-intensity based renewable energy supply obligation regulation

Countries around the world are legislating the obligation to install renewable energy systems (RESs) in buildings to achieve global carbon neutrality. The evaluation of the appropriateness of this obligation is mostly carried out at the early design stage of a project. Policymakers should repeatedly modify and complement the policy to ensure that the institutional evaluation method accurately reflects the performance of the RES that will actually be built. This study proposes a methodology that combines optimization algorithms and dynamic simulation techniques to derive policy complements for the renewable energy installation obligation (REIO) regulation being implemented in Seoul. The methodology involves a process that mathematically models the evaluation basis of REIO and identifies exception outliers from standard based on optimization techniques. Through a case study of Seoul REIO regulation using the proposed methodology, it was found that when incentives for energy storage system installation are either too weak or excessive, it can increase the gap between the institutional evaluation results and simulation evaluation results for the RES energy performance.