In industrialized countries such as Germany, electricity production contributes 30-40% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the country. Confronted with GHG emission reductions targets of 80-95% by 2050 and with some GHG emitting sectors confronted with great difficulties to reach such targets, such as agriculture, the power sector will need to reduce its GHG emissions virtually to zero. As nuclear energy involves very substantial accident risks and the unsolved problem of safe long-term deposit of nuclear waste and as carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) has rather limited safe storage potentials at least in Europe, the question arises, whether it will be possible to supply 100% of all necessary electricity from renewable energy sources? We show that a fast expanding volume of analyses underlines the feasibility and reliability of 100% renewable electricity supply systems. This fast mounting evidence appears to mark the beginning of a paradigm shift in energy politics, as highly regarded national and international advisory bodies such as the IPCC or the German Council of Environmental Advisors start to adopt this perspective. The example of the highly publicized study of the German Council of Environmental Advisors shows how a 100% renewable electricity system for Germany, Europe, and North Africa could look in 2050 and how the transition toward such a system could be achieved. This study, conducted with major input from the authors, is used to show the major aspects of a 100% renewable electricity supply system, such as the security of supply in every hour of the year, the compensation of intermittent sources such as wind and solar PV energy by other renewables and expanded storage, and the necessary extension of national and international grid infrastructures.
In recent years, most countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, have rolled out national policies with the goal of decarbonising their economies. Energy policy goals in these countries have been characterised by expanding the deployment of renewable energy technologies in the electricity mix in the medium term (i.e., until 2030). This tacitly signals a transformation of socio-technical systems by 2030 and beyond. Nevertheless, how these policy objectives actually translate into future scenarios that can also take into account a long-term perspective up to 2050 and correspond to local preferences remains largely understudied. This paper aims to fill this gap by identifying the most widely preferred long-term electricity scenarios for Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. During a series of two-day workshops (one in each country), the research team, along with local stakeholders, adopted a participatory approach to develop multiple 2050 electricity scenarios, which enabled electricity pathways to be modelled using Renewable Energy Pathway Simulation System GIS (renpassG!S). We subsequently used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) within a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) to capture local preferences. The empirical findings show that local stakeholders in all three countries preferred electricity scenarios mainly or even exclusively based on renewables. The findings demonstrate a clear preference for renewable energies and show that useful insights can be generated using participatory approaches to energy planning.
Background: Morocco is facing major challenges in terms of its future energy supply and demand. Specifically, the country is confronted with rising electricity demand, which in turn will lead to higher fossil fuel import dependency and carbon emissions. Recognizing these challenges, Morocco has set ambitious targets for the deployment of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-E). The realization of these targets will lead to a fundamental transition of the Moroccan electricity sector and requires substantial public and private investment. However, different risks constitute barriers for private RES-E investments and lead to high financing costs, which may eventually discourage capital-intensive RES-E projects.Methodology: While the existing literature has mainly focused on assessing the impact of financing costs on the economic competitiveness of individual technologies, the aim of this research is to assess the techno-economic feasibility of different electricity generation portfolios. To recognize the social dimension of the sustainable energy system transition, the electricity scenarios for Morocco have been jointly developed with stakeholders in a scenario building workshop in Rabat, employing a downscaled version of the open source electricity market model renpassG!S, augmented by a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) module.Results: In the stakeholder workshop, four different electricity scenarios for Morocco were co-developed. Each of these scenarios describes a consensual and technologically feasible future development path for the Moroccan energy system up to 2050, and comprises conventional fossil fuel-based technologies, as well as RES-E technologies in varying shares. Employing the downscaled renpassG!S model, we find that total system costs, as well as average levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) can be reduced substantially with low-cost financing. Conclusions:Our results indicate that de-risking RES-E investments can lead to cost competitiveness of a 100% RES-E-based electricity system with mixed-technology scenarios at marked financing costs. Therefore, we identify specific de-risking recommendations for Moroccan energy policymaking. In addition, we argue that participatory scenario modeling enables a better understanding of the risk perceptions of stakeholders, and can eventually contribute to increasing the political feasibility of sustainable energy transition pathways.
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