The Electric Power Research Institute and the International Energy Agency held the third workshop in their Challenges in Electricity Decarbonisation series on October 17, 2016, at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, France. This workshop, titled “Challenges in Optimising the Path to 2050”, also formed a part of the IEA’s Electricity Security Advisory Panel.
BACKGROUND
The Paris Climate Agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), called for nations to set near-term targets and to achieve net-zero emissions in the latter half of this century. The G8 goal of reducing respective GHG emissions by 80% by 2050 was also reaffirmed. According to most estimates, meeting this national emissions reduction target will require an even greater reduction in carbon emissions for the electricity sector.
Numerous authors have demonstrated a variety of technically feasible pathways to achieve these emission reductions, including the scenarios of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook and Energy Technology Perspectives publications. Some of these pathways rely heavily on nuclear, some rely nearly exclusively on renewable energy, and others make use of carbon capture and sequestration.
Pathways involving all of these technologies have been found to be technically feasible - but there are technological and economic hurdles to each. All of them, however, require a significant transformation of existing infrastructure.
This transformation is already under way. The electricity sector is undergoing a period of rapid change in order to meet the 2025 and 2030 goals of COP21, other national goals and targets, and in response to consumer and technological pressures. In many cases the decisions involved in this transformation are expensive and not easy to reverse.
Decisions to build a carbon-capture and sequestration facility, build or retire a nuclear power plant or replace fossil fuels with subsidised renewables can run into the billions of dollars, for example.
The cost of this transformation and the longevity of electricity infrastructure imply that efforts to meet the 2025 and 2030 objectives will have a substantial impact on broader efforts to decarbonise by 2050. Managing long term costs will require market signals that factor the economics of various pathways to 2050 decarbonisation into near- and mid- term targets.
This workshop explored the technological and economic challenges of different pathways to 2050 decarbonisation. In short, what combination of technologies can meet decarbonisation objectives at the least cost? In addressing this question, the workshop sought insights from regulators, system operators, industry and academia in various OECD/non-OECD countries facing similar issues regarding electrifying sector decarbonisation.
The workshop focused on the following areas:
- The Future Of Gas, Coal and Oil Challenges in Electricity Decarbonisation
- Nuclear Outlook
- High-Level Renewables Penetration and Associated Technologies
- Finding the Optimum Path