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Title: Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models

Abstract

Integrated assessment models are extensively used in the analysis of climate change mitigation and are informing national decision makers as well as contribute to international scientific assessments. This paper conducts a comprehensive review of techno-economic assumptions in the electricity sector among fifteen different global and national integrated assessment models. Particular focus is given to six major economies in the world: Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan and the US. The comparison reveals that techno-economic characteristics are quite different across integrated assessment models, both for the base year and future years. It is, however, important to recognize that techno-economic assessments from the literature exhibit an equally large range of parameters as the integrated assessment models reviewed. Beyond numerical differences, the representation of technologies also differs among models, which needs to be taken into account when comparing numerical parameters. While desirable, it seems difficult to fully harmonize techno-economic parameters across a broader range of models due to structural differences in the representation of technology. Therefore, making techno-economic parameters available in the future, together with of the technology representation as well as the exact definitions of the parameters should become the standard approach as it allows an open discussion of appropriate assumptions.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [2];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [5];  [6]; ORCiD logo [7]; ORCiD logo [8];  [9];  [10]; ORCiD logo [11]; ORCiD logo [12]; ORCiD logo [13];  [14];  [15];  [16];  [7];  [14] more »;  [10];  [16]; ORCiD logo [6];  [9];  [7];  [11];  [5];  [5];  [17];  [18];  [15];  [6] « less
  1. International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria); Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim (Norway). Industrial Ecology and Energy Transitions Programmes
  2. International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria)
  3. Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro (COPPE-UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  4. Energy and Resources Inst. (TERI), New Delhi (India)
  5. Potsdam Inst. for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam (Germany)
  6. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague (the Netherlands); Univ. of Utrecht (Netherlands). Copernicus Inst. for Sustainable Development
  7. Inst. of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS), Athina (Greece)
  8. Kyoto Univ. (Japan). Dept. Environmental Engineering; National Inst. for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Ibaraki (Japan)
  9. Energy Research Inst. (ERI), Hebei (China)
  10. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
  11. European Commission, Seville (Spain). Joint Research Centre
  12. Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro (COPPE-UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Imperial College, London (United Kingdom). Grantham Inst.
  13. Mizuho Information & Research Inst., Inc. (MHIR), Tokyo (Japan)
  14. RFF-CMCC European Inst. on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), Milan (Italy). Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC)
  15. Research Inst. of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), Kizugawa (Japan)
  16. Indian Inst. of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), Ahmedabad (India)
  17. Energy and Resources Inst. (TERI), New Delhi (India)
  18. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
OSTI Identifier:
1503159
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5400-73534
Journal ID: ISSN 0360-5442
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Energy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 172; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0360-5442
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY; integrated assessment models; techno-economic assumptions; capital and O&M costs; conversion efficiency; lifetime; levelised cost of energy

Citation Formats

Krey, Volker, Guo, Fei, Kolp, Peter, Zhou, Wenji, Schaeffer, Roberto, Awasthy, Aayushi, Bertram, Christoph, de Boer, Harmen-Sytze, Fragkos, Panagiotis, Fujimori, Shinichiro, He, Chenmin, Iyer, Gokul, Keramidas, Kimon, Köberle, Alexandre C., Oshiro, Ken, Reis, Lara Aleluia, Shoai-Tehrani, Bianka, Vishwanathan, Saritha, Capros, Pantelis, Drouet, Laurent, Edmonds, James E., Garg, Amit, Gernaat, David E. H. J., Jiang, Kejun, Kannavou, Maria, Kitous, Alban, Kriegler, Elmar, Luderer, Gunnar, Mathur, Ritu, Muratori, Matteo, Sano, Fuminori, and van Vuuren, Detlef P. Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2018.12.131.
Krey, Volker, Guo, Fei, Kolp, Peter, Zhou, Wenji, Schaeffer, Roberto, Awasthy, Aayushi, Bertram, Christoph, de Boer, Harmen-Sytze, Fragkos, Panagiotis, Fujimori, Shinichiro, He, Chenmin, Iyer, Gokul, Keramidas, Kimon, Köberle, Alexandre C., Oshiro, Ken, Reis, Lara Aleluia, Shoai-Tehrani, Bianka, Vishwanathan, Saritha, Capros, Pantelis, Drouet, Laurent, Edmonds, James E., Garg, Amit, Gernaat, David E. H. J., Jiang, Kejun, Kannavou, Maria, Kitous, Alban, Kriegler, Elmar, Luderer, Gunnar, Mathur, Ritu, Muratori, Matteo, Sano, Fuminori, & van Vuuren, Detlef P. Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.12.131
Krey, Volker, Guo, Fei, Kolp, Peter, Zhou, Wenji, Schaeffer, Roberto, Awasthy, Aayushi, Bertram, Christoph, de Boer, Harmen-Sytze, Fragkos, Panagiotis, Fujimori, Shinichiro, He, Chenmin, Iyer, Gokul, Keramidas, Kimon, Köberle, Alexandre C., Oshiro, Ken, Reis, Lara Aleluia, Shoai-Tehrani, Bianka, Vishwanathan, Saritha, Capros, Pantelis, Drouet, Laurent, Edmonds, James E., Garg, Amit, Gernaat, David E. H. J., Jiang, Kejun, Kannavou, Maria, Kitous, Alban, Kriegler, Elmar, Luderer, Gunnar, Mathur, Ritu, Muratori, Matteo, Sano, Fuminori, and van Vuuren, Detlef P. Fri . "Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.12.131. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1503159.
@article{osti_1503159,
title = {Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models},
author = {Krey, Volker and Guo, Fei and Kolp, Peter and Zhou, Wenji and Schaeffer, Roberto and Awasthy, Aayushi and Bertram, Christoph and de Boer, Harmen-Sytze and Fragkos, Panagiotis and Fujimori, Shinichiro and He, Chenmin and Iyer, Gokul and Keramidas, Kimon and Köberle, Alexandre C. and Oshiro, Ken and Reis, Lara Aleluia and Shoai-Tehrani, Bianka and Vishwanathan, Saritha and Capros, Pantelis and Drouet, Laurent and Edmonds, James E. and Garg, Amit and Gernaat, David E. H. J. and Jiang, Kejun and Kannavou, Maria and Kitous, Alban and Kriegler, Elmar and Luderer, Gunnar and Mathur, Ritu and Muratori, Matteo and Sano, Fuminori and van Vuuren, Detlef P.},
abstractNote = {Integrated assessment models are extensively used in the analysis of climate change mitigation and are informing national decision makers as well as contribute to international scientific assessments. This paper conducts a comprehensive review of techno-economic assumptions in the electricity sector among fifteen different global and national integrated assessment models. Particular focus is given to six major economies in the world: Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan and the US. The comparison reveals that techno-economic characteristics are quite different across integrated assessment models, both for the base year and future years. It is, however, important to recognize that techno-economic assessments from the literature exhibit an equally large range of parameters as the integrated assessment models reviewed. Beyond numerical differences, the representation of technologies also differs among models, which needs to be taken into account when comparing numerical parameters. While desirable, it seems difficult to fully harmonize techno-economic parameters across a broader range of models due to structural differences in the representation of technology. Therefore, making techno-economic parameters available in the future, together with of the technology representation as well as the exact definitions of the parameters should become the standard approach as it allows an open discussion of appropriate assumptions.},
doi = {10.1016/j.energy.2018.12.131},
journal = {Energy},
number = C,
volume = 172,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Fri Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}

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