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Managing power demand from air conditioning benefits solar pv in India scenarios for 2040
An Indian electricity system with very high shares of solar photovoltaics seems to be a plausible future given the ever-falling solar photovoltaic (PV) costs, recent Indian auction prices, and governmental support schemes. However, the variability of solar PV electricity, i.e., the seasonal, daily, and other weather-induced variations, could create an economic barrier. In this paper, we analyzed a strategy to overcome this barrier with demand-side management (DSM) by lending flexibility to the rapidly increasing electricity demand for air conditioning through either precooling or chilled water storage. With an open-source power sector model, we estimated the endogenous investments into and the hourly dispatching of these demand-side options for a broad range of potential PV shares in the Indian power system in 2040. We found that both options reduce the challenges of variability by shifting electricity demand from the evening peak to midday, thereby reducing the temporal mismatch of demand and solar PV supply profiles. This increases the economic value of solar PV, especially at shares above 40%, the level at which the economic value roughly doubles through demand flexibility. Consequently, DSM increases the competitive and cost-optimal solar PV generation share from 33-45% (without DSM) to ∼45-60% (with DSM). These insights are transferable to most countries with high solar irradiation in warm climate zones, which amounts to a major share of future electricity demand. This suggests that technologies, which give flexibility to air conditioning demand, can be an important contribution toward enabling a solar-centered global electricity supply. © 2020 by the authors.
Common but differentiated leadership: strategies and challenges for carbon neutrality by 2050 across industrialized economies
Given their historic emissions and economic capability, we analyze a leadership role for representative industrialized regions (EU, US, Japan, and Australia) in the global climate mitigation effort. Using the global integrated assessment model REMIND, we systematically compare region-specific mitigation strategies and challenges of reaching domestic net-zero carbon emissions in 2050. Embarking from different emission profiles and trends, we find that all of the regions have technological options and mitigation strategies to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Regional characteristics are mostly related to different land availability, population density and population trends: While Japan is resource limited with respect to onshore wind and solar power and has constrained options for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), their declining population significantly decreases future energy demand. In contrast, Australia and the US benefit from abundant renewable resources, but face challenges to curb industry and transport emissions given increasing populations and high per-capita energy use. In the EU, lack of social acceptance or EU-wide cooperation might endanger the ongoing transition to a renewable-based power system. CDR technologies are necessary for all regions, as residual emissions cannot be fully avoided by 2050. For Australia and the US, in particular, CDR could reduce the required transition pace, depth and costs. At the same time, this creates the risk of a carbon lock-in, if decarbonization ambition is scaled down in anticipation of CDR technologies that fail to deliver. Our results suggest that industrialized economies can benefit from cooperation based on common themes and complementary strengths. This may include trade of electricity-based fuels and materials as well as the exchange of regional experience on technology scale-up and policy implementation.
Taking stock of national climate policies to evaluate implementation of the Paris Agreement
Many countries have implemented national climate policies to accomplish pledged Nationally Determined Contributions and to contribute to the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2023, the global stocktake will assess the combined effort of countries. Here, based on a public policy database and a multi-model scenario analysis, we show that implementation of current policies leaves a median emission gap of 22.4 to 28.2 GtCO2eq by 2030 with the optimal pathways to implement the well below 2 °C and 1.5 °C Paris goals. If Nationally Determined Contributions would be fully implemented, this gap would be reduced by a third. Interestingly, the countries evaluated were found to not achieve their pledged contributions with implemented policies (implementation gap), or to have an ambition gap with optimal pathways towards well below 2 °C. This shows that all countries would need to accelerate the implementation of policies for renewable technologies, while efficiency improvements are especially important in emerging countries and fossil-fuel-dependent countries.
REMIND2.1: transformation and innovation dynamics of the energy-economic system within climate and sustainability limits
This paper presents the new and now open-source version 2.1 of the REgional Model of INvestments and Development (REMIND). REMIND, as an integrated assessment model (IAM), provides an integrated view of the global energy–economy–emissions system and explores self-consistent transformation pathways. It describes a broad range of possible futures and their relation to technical and socio-economic developments as well as policy choices. REMIND is a multiregional model incorporating the economy and a detailed representation of the energy sector implemented in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS). It uses non-linear optimization to derive welfare-optimal regional transformation pathways of the energy-economic system subject to climate and sustainability constraints for the time horizon from 2005 to 2100. The resulting solution corresponds to the decentralized market outcome under the assumptions of perfect foresight of agents and internalization of external effects. REMIND enables the analyses of technology options and policy approaches for climate change mitigation with particular strength in representing the scale-up of new technologies, including renewables and their integration in power markets. The REMIND code is organized into modules that gather code relevant for specific topics. Interaction between different modules is made explicit via clearly defined sets of input and output variables. Each module can be represented by different realizations, enabling flexible configuration and extension. The spatial resolution of REMIND is flexible and depends on the resolution of the input data. Thus, the framework can be used for a variety of applications in a customized form, balancing requirements for detail and overall runtime and complexity.
The CO2 reduction potential for the European industry via direct electrification of heat supply (power-to-heat)
The decarbonisation of industry is a bottleneck for the EU's 2050 target of climate neutrality. Replacing fossil fuels with low-carbon electricity is at the core of this challenge; however, the aggregate electrification potential and resulting system-wide CO2 reductions for diverse industrial processes are unknown. Here, we present the results from a comprehensive bottom-up analysis of the energy use in 11 industrial sectors (accounting for 92% of Europe's industry CO2 emissions), and estimate the technological potential for industry electrification in three stages. Seventy-eight per cent of the energy demand is electrifiable with technologies that are already established, while 99% electrification can be achieved with the addition of technologies currently under development. Such a deep electrification reduces CO2 emissions already based on the carbon intensity of today's electricity (∼300 gCO2 kWhel−1). With an increasing decarbonisation of the power sector IEA: 12 gCO2 kWhel−1 in 2050), electrification could cut CO2 emissions by 78%, and almost entirely abate the energy-related CO2 emissions, reducing the industry bottleneck to only residual process emissions. Despite its decarbonisation potential, the extent to which direct electrification will be deployed in industry remains uncertain and depends on the relative cost of electric technologies compared to other low-carbon options.