scholarly journals A plant-by-plant strategy for high-ambition coal power phaseout in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryna Yiyun Cui ◽  
Nathan Hultman ◽  
Diyang Cui ◽  
Haewon McJeon ◽  
Sha Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Early Retirement ◽  
Integrated Assessment Model ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Power Capacity ◽  
Plant Strategy ◽  
Carbon Neutrality ◽  
Environmental Criteria ◽  
Coal Power

AbstractMore than half of current coal power capacity is in China. A key strategy for meeting China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal and the global 1.5 °C climate goal is to rapidly shift away from unabated coal use. Here we detail how to structure a high-ambition coal phaseout in China while balancing multiple national needs. We evaluate the 1037 currently operating coal plants based on comprehensive technical, economic and environmental criteria and develop a metric for prioritizing plants for early retirement. We find that 18% of plants consistently score poorly across all three criteria and are thus low-hanging fruits for rapid retirement. We develop plant-by-plant phaseout strategies for each province by combining our retirement algorithm with an integrated assessment model. With rapid retirement of the low-hanging fruits, other existing plants can operate with a 20- or 30-year minimum lifetime and gradually reduced utilization to achieve the 1.5 °C or well-below 2 °C climate goals, respectively, with complete phaseout by 2045 and 2055.

scholarly journals The role of biomaterials for the energy transition from the lens of a national integrated assessment model

2021 ◽  
Vol 167 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla C. N. de Oliveira ◽  
Gerd Angelkorte ◽  
Pedro R. R. Rochedo ◽  
Alexandre Szklo
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Integrated Assessment Model ◽  
Assessment Model

scholarly journals Evaluation of Integrated Assessment Model hindcast experiments: A case study of the GCAM 3.0 land use module

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail C. Snyder ◽  
Robert P. Link ◽  
Katherine V. Calvin
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Assessment ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Integrated Assessment Model ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Land Allocation ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Skill Scores ◽  
Performance Benchmarks

Abstract. Hindcasting experiments (conducting a model forecast for a time period in which observational data is available) are rarely undertaken in the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) community. When they are undertaken, the results are often evaluated using global aggregates or otherwise highly aggregated skill scores that mask deficiencies. We select a set of deviation based measures that can be applied at different spatial scales (regional versus global) to make evaluating the large number of variable-region combinations in IAMs more tractable. We also identify performance benchmarks for these measures, based on the statistics of the observational dataset, that allow a model to be evaluated in absolute terms rather than relative to the performance of other models at similar tasks. This is key in the integrated assessment community, where there often are not multiple models conducting hindcast experiments to allow for model intercomparison. The performance benchmarks serve a second purpose, providing information about the reasons a model may perform poorly on a given measure and therefore identifying opportunities for improvement. As a case study, the measures are applied to the results of a past hindcast experiment focusing on land allocation in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0. We find quantitative evidence that global aggregates alone are not sufficient for evaluating IAMs, such as GCAM, that require global supply to equal global demand at each time period. Additionally, the deviation measures examined in this work successfully identity parametric and structural changes that may improve land allocation decisions in GCAM. Future work will involve implementing the suggested improvements to the GCAM land allocation system identified by the measures in this work, using the measures to quantify performance improvement due to these changes, and, ideally, applying these measures to other sectors of GCAM and other land allocation models.

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