National priorities in the power system transition to net-zero: No one size fits all

Yoga Wienda Pratama; Piera Patrizio; Niall Mac Dowell

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105260

National priorities in the power system transition to net-zero: No one size fits all

iScience. 2022 Oct 2;25(10):105260. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105260. eCollection 2022 Oct 21.

Authors

Yoga Wienda Pratama^{1

2}, Piera Patrizio¹, Niall Mac Dowell^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London SW7 1NE, UK.
² The Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.

Abstract

Net-zero emissions targets are increasingly being adopted globally. However, there is a disconnect between policy mechanisms, that primarily focus on incentives to reduce emissions, and technological requirements to achieve this aim. In this context, an absence of CO₂ removal incentives effectively precludes complete decarbonization, while potentially increasing the cost. Here, we quantify the effectiveness of carbon tax, negative emissions credit, and technology improvements in delivering net-zero targets cost-effectively in the UK, Poland, Texas, and Wyoming power systems. We show that the combination of a carbon tax and negative emissions credit is critical to reaching net-zero targets. From the techno-economic perspective, while all cost reduction is welcome, a further cost reduction of renewable energy is uniquely valuable in minimizing the transition cost. However, even with the availability of electricity storage, dispatchable and low-carbon thermal plants are key to cost-effectively maintaining system reliability, regardless of the costs of other alternatives.

Keywords: Energy management; Energy modeling; Energy policy; Energy resources; Energy systems.