An energy vision for a planet under pressure

Worldwide, global energy systems face an array of challenges, from access for the poor to reliability and security. Meanwhile, the provision of energy creates local human and ecological health impacts as well as dangerous global climate change. Addressing these issues simultaneously will require a fundamental transformation of the energy system. Recent assessments show that such a transformation is achievable in technological and economic terms, but it will present formidable supply- and demand-side challenges as well as problems of governance, transparency and reliability across scales. This policy brief presents a long-term vision for the energy system and describes the elements required for the transition towards this vision. To succeed, this transformation must integrate several key components, including a focus on high levels of energy efficiency and the scale up of investments in technology deployment as well as research, development and demonstration (RD&D)

Enabling an Equitable Energy Transition Through Inclusive Research

Comprehensive and meaningful inclusion of marginalized communities within the research enterprise will be critical to ensuring an equitable, technology-informed, clean energy transition. We provide five key action items for government agencies and philanthropic institutions to operationalize the commitment to an equitable energy transition

The influence of negative emission technologies and technology policies on the optimal climate mitigation portfolio

Combining policies to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere with policies to reduce emissions could decrease CO2 concentrations faster than possible via natural processes. We model the optimal selection of a dynamic portfolio of abatement, research and development (R&D), and negative emission policies under an exogenous CO2 constraint and with stochastic technological change. We find that near-term abatement is not sensitive to the availability of R&D policies, but the anticipated availability of negative emission strategies can reduce the near-term abatement optimally undertaken to meet 2 degrees C temperature limits. Further, planning to deploy negative emission technologies shifts optimal R&D funding from "carbon-free" technologies into "emission intensity" technologies. Making negative emission strategies available enables an 80% reduction in the cost of keeping year 2100 CO2 concentrations near their current level. However, negative emission strategies are less important if the possibility of tipping points rules out using late-century net negative emissions to temporarily overshoot the CO2 constraint earlier in the century

Techno-economic scenario analysis of containerized solar energy for use cases at the food/water/health nexus in Rwanda

‘Containerized’ infrastructure solutions have the potential to power the needs of under-resourced communities at the Food/Water/Health nexus, particularly for off-grid, underserved, or remote populations. Drawing from a uniquely large sample of identical containerized solar photovoltaic energy deployments in Rwanda (“Boxes” from OffGridBox), we estimate the potential reach and impact that a massive scale-up of such a flexible, modular approach could entail for fast-growing yet resource-constrained communities around the world. This analysis combines modeled and in-the-field data to consider three use cases (water, food, and health), across optimistic and realistic scenarios. We estimate pollution externalities and compare this solution to incumbent technologies, incorporating uncertainties. In our optimistic scenarios, this containerized solution could provide for either 2083 individuals' daily drinking water needs, 1674 individuals' daily milk consumption, or 100% of a health clinic's energy demand. We then quantify the added benefit of providing these loads using solar energy instead of the incumbent non-renewable diesel generator in terms of cost and air quality, and incorporate the sensitivity of results to uncertainties using Monte Carlo Analysis simulations. For water purification and milk chilling uses, we find that solar has a lower lifecycle cost of energy; 0.39 and 0.38 USD/kWh respectively compared to 0.63 [range: 0.52, 0.80] USD/kWh and 0.59 [range: 0.48, 0.76] USD/kWh for diesel. Additionally, solar has lower cost variability and avoids pollutant and greenhouse emissions (e.g., 85,799.08 kgs [range: 66,830.49, 115,491.30] of carbon dioxide over the 20-year system lifetime). Moving beyond the standard energy modeling of previous literature, this analysis is uniquely able to inform future sustainable energy systems at the Food/Water/Health nexus

An action agenda for Africa's electricity sector

To meet the needs of a growing population in a manner that is socially equitable, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable, Africa's electricity sector will require a major transformation (1). It has already undergone some important changes over the past decade. Efforts to expand access to electricity have proceeded at a slightly faster pace than anticipated 10 years ago. In parallel, the deployment of renewable energy technologies has progressed apace, despite new discoveries of natural gas across the continent and favored by the volatility of oil prices. Nonetheless, the expansion and modernization of Africa's electricity sector need heightened efforts, as evidenced by current electrification rates, generation-capacity levels, and security-of-supply indicators. We identify a suite of actions that, if implemented, would put Africa's electricity sector on track to sharply increase electrification rates across the continent while securing long-term access to affordable cleaner energy, and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and emissions of local-air pollutants (see the figure) (2)

Supporting security and adequacy in future energy systems: The need to enhance long-term energy system models to better treat issues related to variability

As the shares of variable renewable generation in power systems increase, so does the need for, inter alia, flexible balancing mechanisms. These mechanisms help ensure the reliable operation of the electricity system by compensating for fluctuations in supply or demand. However, a focus on short-term balancing is sometimes neglected when assessing future capacity expansions with long-term energy system models. Developing heuristics that can simulate short-term system issues is one way of augmenting the functionality of such models. To this end, we present an extended functionality to the Open Source Energy Modelling System (OSeMOSYS), which captures the impacts of short-term variability of supply and demand on system adequacy and security. Specifically, we modelled the system adequacy as the share of wind energy is increased. Further, we enable the modelling of operating reserve capacities required for balancing services. The dynamics introduced through these model enhancements are presented in an application case study. This application indicates that introducing short-term constraints in long-term energy models may considerably influence the dispatch of power plants, capacity investments, and, ultimately, the policy recommendations derived from such models

Fixing a critical climate accounting error

Rules for applying the Kyoto Protocol and national cap-and-trade laws contain a major, but fixable, carbon accounting flaw in assessing bioenergy