They actually rule that out in their model. It should make things slightly cheaper and easier if the EU nations all do this and trade energy, but it's not required.
They exclude a few other notable things:
> Our limit scenario makes a number of severely constraining assumptions
for the purpose of emphasizing what is possible for 100% SWB systems.
The bar for clean energy will not be nearly so high in most locations.
Assumption 2: no conventional operating reserve
Assumption 3: no other renewables
Assumption 4: no distributed generation or storage
Assumption 5: no impacts from electric vehicle energy storage
Assumption 6: no demand response, load shifting, energy arbitrage,
or peak shaving
Assumption 7: no technology breakthroughs
Assumption 8:
no subsidies, carbon taxes, or other financial innovations
These are all good things, they're not predicting or recommending against them, they're just saying they've assumed they don't exist when running the numbers to prove it would work everywhere.
They actually rule that out in their model. It should make things slightly cheaper and easier if the EU nations all do this and trade energy, but it's not required.
They exclude a few other notable things:
> Our limit scenario makes a number of severely constraining assumptions for the purpose of emphasizing what is possible for 100% SWB systems. The bar for clean energy will not be nearly so high in most locations.
Assumption 2: no conventional operating reserve
Assumption 3: no other renewables
Assumption 4: no distributed generation or storage
Assumption 5: no impacts from electric vehicle energy storage
Assumption 6: no demand response, load shifting, energy arbitrage, or peak shaving
Assumption 7: no technology breakthroughs
Assumption 8: no subsidies, carbon taxes, or other financial innovations
These are all good things, they're not predicting or recommending against them, they're just saying they've assumed they don't exist when running the numbers to prove it would work everywhere.