Sector coupling in facilitating integration of variable renewable energy in cities

To accommodate high shares of variable renewables in an effort to address global climate change, the future power system would require significant enhancement in grid flexibility. This report highlights the importance of sector coupling as a key source of flexibility that cities can explore to stabilise power grid operations when integrating high shares of variable renewable energy sources. It presents a range of sector coupling opportunities available for use in cities. In this report, the focus is on four main areas: self-consumption of variable renewable energy sources at various scales, the role of thermal energy storage in sector coupling strategies, electro-mobility (a promising scenario for decarbonising the transport sector with renewable electricity) and green hydrogen.