Electricity, the silver bullet for the deep decarbonisation of the energy system? Cost-effectiveness analysis for Portugal

Fortes, Patrícia; Simões, Sofia; Gouveia, João Pedro; Seixas, Júlia

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.12.067

Cited by 46 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The technological peer-reviewed model TIMES_PT [15] was used to evaluate the future penetration of different cost-effective technological options in each of the three storylines/scenarios. The TIMES_PT model represents the whole Portuguese energy system and its possible long-term developments.…”

Section: Energy System Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Neutrality Pathways Effects on Air Pollutant Emissions: The Portuguese Case

et al. 2021

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Air pollution and climate change are closely interlinked, once both share common emission sources, which mainly arise from fuel combustion and industrial processes. Climate mitigation actions bring co-benefits on air quality and human health. However, specific solutions can provide negative trade-offs for one side. The Portuguese Carbon Neutrality Roadmap was developed to assess conceivable cost-effective pathways to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050. Assessing its impacts, on air pollutant emissions, is the main focus of the present work. The bottom-up linear optimization energy system the integrated MARKAL-EFOM system (TIMES) model was selected as a modeling tool for the decarbonization scenarios assessment. The estimation of air pollutant emissions was performed exogenously to the TIMES model. Results show that reaching net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is possible, and technologically feasible, in Portugal, by 2050. The crucial and most cost-effective vector for decarbonizing the national economy is the end-use energy consumption electrification, renewable based, across all end-use sectors. Decarbonization efforts were found to have strong co-benefits for reducing air pollutant emissions in Portugal. Transport and power generation are the sectors with the greatest potential to reduce GHG emissions, providing likewise the most significant reductions of air pollutant emissions. Despite the overall positive effects, there are antagonistic effects, such as the use of biomass, mainly in industry and residential sectors, which translates into increases in particulate matter emissions. This is relevant for medium term projections, since results show that, by 2030, PM2.5 emissions are unlikely to meet the emission reduction commitments set at the European level, if no additional control measures are considered.

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Section: Energy System Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Neutrality Pathways Effects on Air Pollutant Emissions: The Portuguese Case

et al. 2021

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“…Notably, among clean energy carriers, numerous studies show that a transition to electricity by the demand-side plays a pivotal role in large-scale CO 2 reduction of all demand sectors on a global, national and urban scale (Sugiyama 2012;Williams et al 2012;Wei et al 2013, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014; Quiggin and Buswell 2016;Raghavan et al 2017;IPCC 2018;Fortes et al 2019;Hill et al 2019;Luh et al 2020;Zhang and Fujimori 2020).…”

Section: Energy Scenarios For Long-term Climate Change Mitigation In mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also examine different levels of emissions constraints. More stringent emissions constraint should accelerate demand-side decarbonization, resulting in higher clean energy carrier shares or electrification rates (Fortes et al 2019). Targeting 2050, we consider 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100% emission reduction levels to understand the impacts of climate policies.…”

Section: Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demand-side decarbonization and electrification: EMF 35 JMIP study

et al. 2021

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Japan’s long-term strategy submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change emphasizes the importance of improving the electrification rates to reducing GHG emissions. Using the five models participating in Energy Modeling Forum 35 Japan Model Intercomparison project (JMIP), we focused on the demand-side decarbonization and analyzed the final energy composition required to achieve 80% reductions in GHGs by 2050 in Japan. The model results show that the electricity share in final energy use (electrification rate) needs to reach 37–66% in 2050 (26% in 2010) to achieve the emissions reduction of 80%. The electrification rate increases mainly due to switching from fossil fuel end-use technologies (i.e. oil water heater, oil stove and combustion-engine vehicles) to electricity end-use technologies (i.e. heat pump water heater and electric vehicles). The electricity consumption in 2050 other than AIM/Hub ranged between 840 and 1260 TWh (AIM/Hub: 1950TWh), which is comparable to the level seen in the last 10 years (950–1035 TWh). The pace at which electrification rate must be increased is a challenge. The model results suggest to increase the electrification pace to 0.46–1.58%/yr from 2030 to 2050. Neither the past electrification pace (0.30%/year from 1990 to 2010) nor the outlook of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (0.15%/year from 2010 to 2030) is enough to reach the suggested electrification rates in 2050. Therefore, more concrete measures to accelerate dissemination of electricity end-use technologies across all sectors need to be established.

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“…They found that "the influential IEA scenarios [which] have conservative projections for solar PV growth and offer little analysis of emerging energy technologies", concluding that the WEO projections for solar PV consistently underestimated the actual implementation rates. In this article we have chosen to focus instead on the percentage of electricity generated from renewable technologies as a proxy indicator for the transition to low carbon energy systems, keeping in mind the crucial role that renewable electricity is widely expected to have in deep decarbonization scenarios [16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Variation of IEA Energy and CO2 Emission Projections: Implications for Future Energy Modeling

Fazendeiro

Simões

2021

Sustainability

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The World Energy Outlook reports produced by the International Energy Agency have long been considered the “gold standard” in terms of energy modeling and projecting future trends. It is thus extremely important to assess how well its projections are aligned with sustainable development goals as well as closely tracking observed, historical values. In this work we analyzed thirteen sets of World Energy Outlook projections from the last 25 years. Different scenarios were considered for the following regions and countries: world, OECD, OECD Europe, OECD North America, China, India, Russia, and Africa. The maximum variation between the projections for 2030 CO2 emissions from the energy sector, made between 2006 and 2018 for OECD, Europe and North America were found to be comparable with the gap between the Paris Agreement goals and the voluntary (unconditional) nationally determined contributions to remain below a 2 °C global temperature increase. For the same period, projections for the percentage of renewable electricity exhibited maximum variations between 51% and 96%, signaling a huge underestimation. We discuss the significance of overestimating energy demand and underestimating the rate of renewable energy implementation in the context of 2030 climate and energy policy targets, as well as desirablemethodological changes to energy modeling under aggressive climate mitigation policies.

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Electricity, the silver bullet for the deep decarbonisation of the energy system? Cost-effectiveness analysis for Portugal

Cited by 46 publications

References 34 publications

Carbon Neutrality Pathways Effects on Air Pollutant Emissions: The Portuguese Case

Carbon Neutrality Pathways Effects on Air Pollutant Emissions: The Portuguese Case

Demand-side decarbonization and electrification: EMF 35 JMIP study

Historical Variation of IEA Energy and CO2 Emission Projections: Implications for Future Energy Modeling

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