Electricity as leverage for the low carbon economy

The IEP roadmap to 2050

In December 2009, the International Electricity Partnership (IEP) published its 'Roadmap for a Low-Carbon Power Sector by 2050'. The IEP was created in October 2008 at an international summit of electricity chief executives held in Atlanta, USA. Its roadmap focuses on Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the United States.

The IEP industry leaders see a crucial role for the electrical power sector. Historically, electrical power has been the largest source of CO2 emissions, the main contributor to climate change. But in the upcoming decades electricity can become a key lever in evolving towards a low carbon economy, states the IEP. The key technological evolutions necessary to make this happen are the electrification of heating and transport, and carbon-free power generation.

Aggressive application of technology

The report sets a target of 60% to 80% reduction in carbon emission by 2050. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this is the level of reductions required to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere at 450 to 550 ppm CO2eq. This is estimated to correspond with an average global temperature rise of 2-3 °C. The IEP argues that reaching this target is only possible through an aggressive application of technology. It advocates policies that provide incentives for high investments in renewable energy, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), nuclear power, smart grids, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and energy efficiency.

A different timescale

One of the key elements necessary for the success of a roadmap is the timescale of actions. On this point there exist two different points of view. The first emphasises that if we are to attain a sustainable climate future, we have to accelerate the transition to green power. The second point of view states that for an optimal deployment of low-carbon technology, a longer transition period is required. The lack of such a period could jeopardise energy security and possibly 'lock in' unsuitable and uneconomic technologies, given the long lifetime of power infrastructure (30 — 60 years).

When assessing the current state of affairs, finding a perfect match employing both approaches seems impossible. A massive deployment of low-carbon technologies will only be possible after 2020, unless we are willing to run the risk of high unreliability. According to the IEP, this delay should then be compensated by a more rapid evolution between 2025 and 2040, in order to meet the 2050 targets. However, working out such a timescale in which the following decade is seen as 'preparation time' for a massive later deployment does not correspond with current political actions. Most political activity currently seems to be concentrated on achieving 2020 targets and does not look much further down the timeline.

Electricity as the ideal energy vector

The IEP report sees electricity as the perfect energy vector for a low carbon economy. Electricity enables high energy efficiency and its emissions — if any — are at the generation stage. Further electrifying our society could therefore prove a key factor in reducing carbon emissions. Specifically, the widespread adoption of electric vehicle transport and electric heating through heat pumps could make huge differences in carbon emissions. Such changes, however, involve a genuine paradigm shift, which cannot be completed in only a few years.

Adapting the electrical network

One of the main challenges of a sustainable 'all-electrical' society will be the adaptation of the electrical grid. The IEP claims that tremendous investments will have to be made in the electrical grid in the next couple of decades. New long-distance transmission lines will be required to transport the energy from remote renewable energy production centres. Moreover, a high penetration of distributed generation, EVs, and heat pumps will pose new and higher demands on the distribution network. The IEP report sees the distinction between transmission grid and distribution network increasingly disappearing, since the entire system will have to be redesigned and operated as an integrated unit. Flow control, energy storage systems, and demand side management will be key elements in this new concept.

Written by players in the field

Since the IEP report is written by the actual players in the field — the ones who will have to work with the new energy system — it is careful not to set overly ambitious targets. For instance, the authors admit that we cannot do without new natural gas power plants in the upcoming decade, despite being a solution that is fading-out. The IEP also includes coal fired power plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as nuclear power in its generation mix, in contrast with the paper 'Searching for a miracle' which we reported on last month.

Comment

Share / Save

Print

Your name *

E-mail *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage

Subject

Comment *

Switch to plain text editor

More information about text formats

Text format Filtered HTMLPlain text

Filtered HTML

• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

Plain text

• No HTML tags allowed.
• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.