Renewable Energy Sources and Electricity Supply Chain: an Overview of new Structures, Planning and operational Challenges, and enabling Technologies

The electricity industry is knowing progressively a radical transformation because of the increasing importance of the role played by renewable energy sources. In fact, the ongoing and growing large-scale integration of renewable energy sources, especially the non-programmable ones, is requiring deep changes in the structure and functioning of the supply chain underlying the electricity industry, raising importance challenges with regard to the security and efficiency of the power provision and the profitability of the associated market. The cause of the changes consists mainly on the combination of two key features underlying non-programmable renewable energy sources: variability and unpredictability. These two concepts are redefining the infrastructural, technical and managerial needs that have to be fulfilled to ensure a stable, secure and efficient electricity supply. This dissertation tries to analyze how non-programmable renewable energy sources and their characteristics are changing the phases which the electricity supply chain develops along , the structure of the market, and the planning and managerial challenges they are raising.