Moksnes_2019_Environ._Res._Commun._1_025001.pdf (2.3 MB)
Download fileDeterminants of energy futures—a scenario discovery method applied to cost and carbon emission futures for South American electricity infrastructure
journal contribution
posted on 2021-01-11, 13:39 authored by Nandi Moksnes, Julie Rozenberg, Oliver Broad, Constantinos Taliotis, Mark HowellsMark Howells, Holger RognerEnergy policy and investment are commonly informed by a small number of scenarios, modelled with proprietary models and closed data-sets. It limits what levels of insight that can be derived from it. This paper overcomes these critical concerns by exploring a large number of scenarios with an open-data and open-source model to address regional mitigation policy. Focusing on South America, we translate an ensemble of long-term electricity supply scenarios into policy insights and use post-processing methods to present a systematic mapping of solution outputs to model inputs. We find demand levels, the cost of capital and the level of CO2-limits to be significant determinants of total investment cost. Low-carbon pathways are associated with low demand and low cost of capital. When cost of capital increases a shift away from wind and hydropower to natural gas and solar PV is seen. We further show that appropriate concessionary finance together with energy efficiency measures are critical—at a continental level—to unlock economic, low-carbon investment.
Funding
World Bank
Formas
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Geography and Environment