Hourly emission factors and marginal costs of energy carriers are determined to enable a simplified assessment of decarbonization measures in energy systems. Since the sectors and energy carriers are increasingly coupled in the context of the energy transition, the complexity of balancing emissions increases. Methods of calculating emission factors and marginal energy carrier costs in a multi-energy carrier model were presented and applied. The model used and the input data from a trend scenario for Germany up to the year 2050 were described for this purpose. A linear optimization model representing electricity, district heating, hydrogen, and methane was used. All relevant constraints and modeling assumptions were documented. In this context, an emissions accounting method has been proposed, which allows for determining time-resolved emission factors for different energy carriers in multi-energy systems (MES) while considering the linkages between energy carriers. The results showed that the emissions accounting method had a strong influence on the level and the hourly profile of the emission factors. The comparison of marginal costs and emission factors provided insights into decarbonization potentials. This holds true in particular for the electrification of district heating since a strong correlation between low marginal costs and times with renewable excess was observed. The market values of renewables were determined as an illustrative application of the resulting time series of costs. The time series of marginal costs as well as the time series of emission factors are made freely available for further use.

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The substitution of fossil fueled final energy consumption through electrical appliances and processes (electrification), in combination with an increased share of emission free electricity production, poses a promising deep decarbonization strategy. To reveal the effect of high demand‐side electrification rates on the transmission grid and electricity supply‐side a case‐study analysis for the German market is performed. A reference scenario with low demand‐side electrification and low grid congestion is compared to high demand‐side electrification scenarios with two different shares of renewable electricity production of total electrical load: “Elec61” and “Elec75.” The analysis shows that an increase of the electrical load from ~500 TWh to ~760 TWh leads to heightened stress for the transmission grid and therefore more curtailment in both electrification scenarios. In Elec61, which exhibits the same share of renewable electricity production as the reference scenario, the integration of 19 TWh of flexible power‐to‐heat in district heating networks reduces the market driven curtailment of renewable feed‐in, highlighting the value of flexible electrical loads for the integration of variable renewable energy sources. Although a drastic increase of installed renewable electricity production capacity occurs in Elec61 (+109 GW) and Elec75 (+178 GW) compared to the reference scenario, fossil fueled power plants are still being dispatched frequently in times of high electrical load and low renewable energy feed. In the examined scenarios, deep decarbonization through electrification was not possible because the decrease of the CO2‐coefficient of power generation resulting from an increase in the installed capacity of variable renewable energy sources was insufficient. This article is categorized under: Wind Power > Systems and Infrastructure Energy and Climate > Systems and Infrastructure Energy Systems Analysis > Systems and Infrastructure

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