The role of renewable energy in climate stabilization: results from the EMF27 scenarios

Abstract

This paper uses the EMF27 scenarios to explore the role of renewable energy in climate change mitigation. Renewables currently supply approximately 18% of global electricity demand. Almost all EMF27 mitigation scenarios show a strong increase in renewable power production, with a substantial ramp-up of wind and solar power deployment. In many scenarios, renewables are the most important long-term mitigation option for power supply. Wind energy is competitive even without climate policy, whereas the prospects of solar photovoltaics (PV) are highly contingent on the ambitiousness of climate policy. Bioenergy is an important and versatile energy carrier; however-with the exception of low temperature heat-there is less scope for renewables other than biomass for non-electric energy supply.Despite the important role of wind and solar power in scenarios with full technology availability, limiting their deployment has a relatively small effect on climate mitigation costs. This is because they can be substituted by other low-carbon power supply options, such as nuclear or carbon capture and storage (CCS). Limited bioenergy availability in combination with limited wind and solar power, by contrast, results in a much more substantial increase in mitigation costs.While a number of robust insights emerge, the results for renewable energy deployment levels vary significantly across the models. An in-depth analysis of a subset of EMF27 reveals substantial differences in modeling approaches and parameter assumptions. To a certain degree, differences in model results can be attributed to different assumptions about technology costs, resources, and systems integration.

A reduced-form approach for representing the impacts of wind and solar PV deployment on the structure and operation of the electricity system

“…Climate change mitigation scenarios suggest a large role for renewable energy in decarbonizing the electricity sector [1,2]. In particular, the long-term energy-economy-climate models with which these scenarios are evaluated rely heavily on variable renewable energy (VRE) technologies, which include wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) that are intermittent and non-dispatchable.…”

“…A few approaches have been implemented for incorporating VRE integration costs and/or constraints into energy-economy-climate models [1]. The simplest solution has been to impose an upper limit on the share of total electricity generation that can be supplied by VRE in an attempt to restrict VRE deployment to a level at which integration costs are small (e.g., 15% generation share).…”

“…In addition, the approach is limited to wind generation and is not differentiated by region. Ueckerdt et al proposes the use of residual load duration curves (RLDCs) 1 to quantify the structural changes and curtailment impacts associated with VRE deployment [12,13]. RLDCs represent the duration of residual load within a region that must be met by non-VRE power sources and thus can be used to estimate the capacity value of VRE technologies, the amount of VRE curtailment, and the impacts on non-VRE plant utilization as the share of VRE increases.…”

Energy technology roll-out for climate change mitigation: A multi-model study for Latin America

“…All such uncertainties, and the extent to which the most recent technology cost change developments have been taken into account, imply relatively large differences across models in assumptions regarding these variables, which in turn result in the large ranges depicted in the plots for wind energy of Fig. 8 (see also Luderer et al, 2014, for a detailed study for matters like these).…”

“…Luderer et al, 2014). While probably critical to decarbonising the power sector, wind and solar energy resources are intermittent and therefore impose challenges for their integration into the power grid.…”