Would firm generators facilitate or deter variable renewable energy in a carbon-free electricity system?

Mengyao Yuan, Fan Tong, Lei Duan, Jacqueline A. Dowling, Steven J. Davis, Nathan S. Lewis and Ken Caldeira

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 279, issue C, No S0306261920312733

Abstract: To reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and mitigate impacts of climate change, countries across the world have mandated quotas for renewable electricity. But a question has remained largely unexplored: would low-cost, firm, zero-carbon electricity generation technologies enhance—or would they displace—deployment of variable renewable electricity generation technologies, i.e., wind and solar photovoltaics, in a least-cost, fully reliable, and deeply decarbonized electricity system? To address this question, we modeled idealized electricity systems based on historical weather data and considered only technoeconomic factors. We did not apply a predetermined use model. We found that cost reductions in firm generation technologies (starting at current costs, ramping down to nearly zero) uniformly resulted in increased penetration of the firm technologies and decreased penetration of variable renewable electricity generation, in electricity systems where technology deployment is primarily driven by relative costs, and across a wide array of future technology cost assumptions. Similarly, reduced costs of variable renewable electricity (starting at current costs, ramping down to nearly zero) drove out firm generation technologies. Yet relative to deployment of “must-run” firm generation technologies, and when the studied firm technologies have high fixed costs relative to variable costs, the addition of flexibility to firm generation technologies had only limited impacts on the system cost, less than a 9% system cost reduction in our idealized model. These results reveal that policies and funding that support particular technologies for low- or zero-carbon electricity generation can inhibit the development of other low- or zero-carbon alternatives.

Keywords: Net-zero electricity systems; Firm carbon-free electricity generation; Variable renewable energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920312733
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:279:y:2020:i:c:s0306261920312733

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115789

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().