The Vulnerability of the Power Sector to Climate Variability and Change: Evidence from Indonesia

The power sector is a key target for reducing CO2 emissions. However, little attention has been paid to the sector’s vulnerability to climate change. This paper investigates the impacts of severe weather events and changes in climate variables on the power sector in developing countries, focusing on Indonesia as a country with growing electricity infrastructure, yet being vulnerable to natural hazards. We obtain empirical evidence concerning weather and climate impacts through interviews and focus group discussions with electric utilities along the electricity supply chain. These data are supplemented with reviews of utilities’ reports and published energy sector information. Our results indicate that severe weather events often cause disruptions in electricity supply—in the worst cases, even power outages. Weather-related power outages mainly occur due to failures in distribution networks. While severe weather events infrequently cause shutdowns of power plants, their impact magnitude is significant if it does occur. Meanwhile, transmission networks are susceptible to lightning strikes, which are the leading cause of the networks’ weather-related failures. We also present estimates of financial losses suffered by utilities due to weather-related power disruptions and highlights their adaptation responses to those disruptions

Cost-Effectiveness of Emission Reduction for the Indonesian Coal-Fired Power Plants

This paper presents the result of research on the cost-effectiveness of emission reduction in the selected coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in Indonesia. The background of this research is the trend of more stringent environmental regulation regarding air emission from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in Indonesia. One consequence of stringent air emission regulation is the increase of air pollution control costs. This research provides recommendations for PLN, the state electricity company in Indonesia regarding the cost-effectiveness of reducing air emission from CFPPs in order to comply with an upcoming stringent environmental regulation. Four CFPPs were selected as research units of which two units represent large-scale CFPPs while the other two units represent small-scale CFPPs. A cost-engineering model i.e. CUEcost model is employed to estimate the abatement costs. Pollution control technologies were considered with respect to time, allocation across various scales of production unit and with respect to technological progress

4TU DeSIRE conference on Resilience Engineering:Building Connections for Resilience Engineering Solutions

Developing countries are the most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change due to their low adaptive capacities — socially, technologically, and financially (UNFCCC, 2007). Yet, the electricity sector in these countries is already vulnerable to the present-day weather and climate, let alone the future climate (Audinet et al., 2014). While there is increasing recognition of the sector’s vulnerability to climate change in the Global North, a detailed investigation about climate change impacts on the electricity sector in developing countries is still missing. This study identifies the historical effects of severe weather events and changes in climate variables on the electricity sector in the context of developing countries. We focus on Indonesia: it faces frequent natural disasters, which already affect its electricity supply infrastructures and will only intensify with climate change. By means of interviews and focus group discussions involving 52 practitioners of Indonesia’s electricity companies, we identify the channels through which climate change exacerbates the vulnerability of the Indonesian electricity sector. Our findings reveal that weather-related power outages very often occurred due to failures in the distribution networks. While severe weather events rarely caused shutdowns of power plants, their impact magnitude is significant once they have occurred. Meanwhile, transmission networks are susceptible to lightning strikes, which is the one-leading cause of weather-related failures in the networks. Based on electricity supply disruptions data from the Indonesia’s electricity companies, we estimate financial losses suffered by the utilities due to weather-related power disruptions. In addition to the estimated impacts, the study highlights the adaptation responses taken by the utilities to cope with severe weather and changes in climate variables. These findings imply that climate-resilient electricity sector should be a priority, especially for developing countries where massive electrification needs coincide with vulnerability to natural hazards

Seeking for a climate change mitigation and adaptation nexus: Analysis of a long-term power system expansion

Reductions in carbon emissions have been a focus of the power sector. However, the sector itself is vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Extreme weather events and gradual changes in climate variables can affect the reliability, cost, and environmental impacts of the energy supply. This paper analyzed the interplay between CO2 mitigation attempts and adaptations to climate change in the power sector using the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning System (LEAP) model. This paper presented a novel methodology to integrate both CO2 mitigation goals and the impacts of climate change into simulations of a power system expansion. The impacts on electricity supply and demand were quantified, based on historical climate-related impacts revealed during fieldwork and existing literature. The quantified effects, together with climate mitigation targets, were then integrated into the LEAP modeling architecture. The results showed a substantial alteration in technology composition and an increase in installed capacities driven by the joint climate mitigation–adaptation efforts when compared with the scenario without mitigation and adaptation (reference). Furthermore, an increase in CO2 emissions was observed under the mitigation-adaptation scenario compared with the mitigation only scenario, indicating that the power sector’s adaptations for climate change are likely to hinder CO2 mitigation efforts. Therefore, a nexus between mitigation and adaptation should be exploited in the policy development for a low-carbon and climate-resilient power system

Integrating 100% renewable energy into electricity systems: A net-zero analysis for Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar

This article assesses developing-countries’ power sector pathways toward net zero. The Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) combined with the Next Energy Modeling system for Optimization (NEMO) is used to simulate 100% renewable energy integration into power systems. While many studies have been carried out using LEAP, few have utilized NEMO (the latest optimization add-on for LEAP) for analyzing net-zero pathways of the power sector in developing countries. NEMO enables the inclusion of energy storage capacity in the long-term simulation of power system capacity expansion. Storage is crucial for balancing intermittent renewable energy especially when high penetration of renewable energy is considered. The analysis is applied to three countries in the Global South: Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. These three cases are selected because they share important similarities (e.g., all three are below the energy poverty line and vulnerable to climate change impacts) but also have differences (notably, electrification rates), making them suitable for comparison. The LEAP-NEMO results indicate that the average electricity consumption per capita of Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar will pass the energy poverty line by 2030, 2035, and 2045, respectively. On the supply side, the results show that the three countries can integrate 100% renewable energy into their power systems by realizing their hydropower potential and deploying non-hydro renewables. As expected, energy storage systems will have to play a critical role in balancing variable renewable energy with a total storage capacity of 16.1 GW by 2050. The annual average costs for the sustainable path range from 1.1% to 1.8% of GDP in 2020. While the approach presented in this article is applied to three specific developing countries, it can be replicated in other developing countries to analyze the integration of 100% renewable energy into the power system to achieve net zero emissions

Moving beyond the NDCs: ASEAN pathways to a net-zero emissions power sector in 2050

The power sector is one of the major contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions while also being vulnerable to climate change in its own right. Accordingly, the global power sector needs to accelerate decarbonization. This paper assesses power sector pathways to net-zero emissions by 2050 for the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) using the Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP). In addition to simulating a net-zero emissions scenario, the paper builds reference and renewable policy scenarios, enabling an analysis of additional measures required beyond the business as usual and current policy trajectories to achieve net-zero emissions. The LEAP simulation results indicate that under the net-zero emissions scenario, ASEAN member states need to swiftly capitalize on their currently underutilized renewable energy potential to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. By then, there will have to be a substantial transformation of the technological portfolio with variable renewable energy and energy storage coming to play central roles. The LEAP simulations also indicate that renewable and energy storage technologies are more cost-competitive than carbon capture and storage for achieving the long-term net-zero emissions goal. In the LEAP modeling, GHG emissions rise until they peak in 2029, then gradually decline until reaching zero by 2050. Meanwhile, the emission abatement cost is 16 USD/ton CO2e in the renewable policy scenario and 12 USD/CO2e in the net-zero emissions scenario