This issue formally launches Environmental Research: Energy, a new open-access interdisciplinary journal focused on energy systems as we grapple with the challenges and opportunities of decarbonization and advancing global social justice. As a society-owned journal in IOP's Environmental Research portfolio, Environmental Research: Energy joins a publishing tradition focused on accessibility, fairness, and excellence, with a crucial topical focus on energy systems. Supported by an interdisciplinary and global editorial board, Environmental Research: Energy welcomes and is committed to creating conditions conducive to multi- and interdisciplinary research, particularly given the deep connections across society, technology, and culture that characterize energy systems. Our inaugural issue highlights the journal's interest in both supply and demand side views of energy systems both adapting to and mitigating climate change across the world, and upcoming focus issues broaden and deepen our emphasis on multidisciplinary investigations into these crucial global issues. Thank you for your support!
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ISSN: 2753-3751
Environmental Research: Energy is a multidisciplinary, open access journal devoted to addressing important challenges associated with energy in a way that bridges efforts relating to impact/future risks, resilience, mitigation, adaptation, security and solutions in the broadest sense. For detailed information about subject coverage see the About the journal section.
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Emily Grubert 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 010401
Haozhe Yang et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 025001
Understanding the costs and the spatial distribution of health and employment outcomes of low-carbon electricity pathways is critical to enable an equitable transition. We integrate an electricity system planning model (GridPath), a health impact model (InMAP), and a multiregional input–output model to quantify China's provincial-level impacts of electricity system decarbonization on costs, health outcomes, employment, and labor compensation. We find that even without specific CO2 constraints, declining renewable energy and storage costs enable a 26% decline in CO2 emissions in 2040 compared to 2020 under the Reference scenario. Compared to the Reference scenario, pursuing 2 °C and 1.5 °C compatible carbon emission targets (85% and 99% decrease in 2040 CO2 emissions relative to 2020 levels, respectively) reduces air pollution-related premature deaths from electricity generation over 2020–2040 by 51% and 63%, but substantially increases annual average costs per unit of electricity demand in 2040 (21% and 39%, respectively). While the 2 °C pathway leads to a 3% increase in electricity sector-related net labor compensation, the 1.5 °C pathway results in a 19% increase in labor compensation driven by greater renewable energy deployment. Although disparities in health impacts across provinces narrow as fossil fuels phase out, disparities in labor compensation widen with wealthier East Coast provinces gaining the most in labor compensation because of materials and equipment manufacturing, and offshore wind deployment.
Kerem Ziya Akdemir et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 015003
Studies of bulk power system operations need to incorporate uncertainty and sensitivity analyses, especially around exposure to weather and climate variability and extremes, but this remains a computational modeling challenge. Commercial production cost models (PCMs) have shorter runtimes, but also important limitations (opacity, license restrictions) that do not fully support stochastic simulation. Open-source PCMs represent a potential solution. They allow for multiple, simultaneous runs in high-performance computing environments and offer flexibility in model parameterization. Yet, developers must balance computational speed (i.e. runtime) with model fidelity (i.e. accuracy). In this paper, we present Grid Operations (GO), a framework for instantiating open-source, scale-adaptive PCMs. GO allows users to search across parameter spaces to identify model versions that appropriately balance computational speed and fidelity based on experimental needs and resource limits. Results provide generalizable insights on how to navigate the fidelity and computational speed tradeoff through parameter selection. We show that models with coarser network topologies can accurately mimic market operations, sometimes better than higher-resolution models. It is thus possible to conduct large simulation experiments that characterize operational risks related to climate and weather extremes while maintaining sufficient model accuracy.
Luis Prieto-Miranda and Jordan D Kern 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 015005
Although damages to local distribution systems from wind and fallen trees are typically responsible for the largest fraction of electricity outages during hurricanes, outages caused by flooding of electrical substations pose a unique risk. Electrical substations are a key component of electric power systems, and in some areas, the loss of a single substation can cause widespread power outages. Before repairing damaged substations, utilities must first allow floodwaters to recede, potentially leaving some customers without power for weeks following storms. As economic losses from flooding continue to increase in the U.S., there has been increasing attention paid to the potential impacts of flooding on power systems. Yet, this attention has mostly been limited to geospatial risk assessments that identify what assets are in the path of flooding. Here, we present the first major attempt to understand how flooding from hurricanes and other extreme precipitation events affects the dynamic behavior of power networks, including losses of demand and generation, and altered power flows through transmission lines. We use North Carolina, hit by major hurricanes in three of the past seven years, as a test case. Using open-source data of grid infrastructure, we develop a high-resolution direct current optimal power flow model that simulates electricity production and generators and power flows through a network consisting of 662 nodes and 790 lines. We then simulate grid operations during the historical (2018) storm Hurricane Florence. Time series of flooding depth at a discrete set of 'high water' mark points from the storm are used to spatially interpolate flooding depth across the footprint area of the storms on an hourly basis. Outages of substations and solar farms due to flooding are translated to location-specific losses of demand and solar power production throughout the network. We perform sensitivity analysis to explore grid impacts as a function of the height of sensitive equipment at substations. Results shed light on the potential for localized impacts from flooding to have wider impacts throughout the grid (including in areas not affected by flooding), with performance tracked in terms of transmission line flows/congestion, generation outputs, and customer outages.
Chen Chen et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 025003
Geothermal energy provides a dispatchable source of carbon-free electricity that can balance the output of variable resources. However, geothermal provides just 3.7 gigawatts (GWe) (1%) of electricity in the United States today, mostly from hydrothermal resources that are geographically constrained. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which extract heat from deep rock, could be applicable in more locations. However, baseline levels and potential trends in EGS costs have been insufficiently characterized by previous studies. Here, we assess geothermal penetration potential by using as baseline the latest available data on drilling costs from three costing models to create updated estimates of costs and performance. We input those estimates along with various scenarios of cost trends, emissions policies, and electricity demand into the regional energy deployment system (ReEDS) capacity expansion model to simulate electricity generation in the United States through 2050. The scarcity of hydrothermal resources limits deployments to no more than 18 GWe across our scenarios. EGS is more costly than hydrothermal for now, but it has greater potential to scale nationwide. Thus, future deployments of EGS depend strongly on projected cost reductions and emissions policies. In scenarios with moderate (50%) reductions in costs by 2050, very little EGS is likely to be built, since wind and solar with storage provide lower-cost electricity. However, over 70% cost reductions from our updated baseline would make geothermal the least-cost carbon-free dispatchable resource. Under those cost trends, we project that 3 GWe of EGS would be built by 2050 under existing policies, 11 GWe with a 95% decarbonization policy, and 152 GWe if full decarbonization of electricity is mandated. Most geothermal would likely first be built in western states with the steepest subsurface temperature gradients, although mandates for full decarbonization could drive it to be deployed in other states.
Hidde Vos et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 025002
Novel wind technologies, in particular airborne wind energy (AWE) and floating offshore wind turbines, have the potential to unlock untapped wind resources and contribute to power system stability in unique ways. So far, the techno-economic potential of both technologies has only been investigated at a small scale, whereas the most significant benefits will likely play out on a system scale. Given the urgency of the energy transition, the possible contribution of these novel technologies should be addressed. Therefore, we investigate the main system-level trade-offs in integrating AWE systems and floating wind turbines into a highly renewable future energy system. To do so, we develop a modelling workflow that integrates wind resource assessment and future cost and performance estimations into a large-scale energy system model, which finds cost-optimal system designs that are operationally feasible with hourly temporal resolution across ten countries in the North Sea region. Acknowledging the uncertainty on AWE systems' future costs and performance and floating wind turbines, we examine a broad range of cost and technology development scenarios and identify which insights are consistent across different possible futures. We find that onshore AWE outperforms conventional onshore wind regarding system-wide benefits due to higher wind resource availability and distinctive hourly generation profiles, which are sometimes complementary to conventional onshore turbines. The achievable power density per ground surface area is the main limiting factor in large-scale onshore AWE deployment. Offshore AWE, in contrast, provides system benefits similar to those of offshore wind alternatives. Therefore, deployment is primarily driven by cost competitiveness. Floating wind turbines achieve higher performance than conventional wind turbines, so they can cost more and remain competitive. AWE, in particular, might be able to play a significant role in a climate-neutral European energy supply and thus warrants further study.
McKenna Peplinski and Kelly T Sanders 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 015002
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) utilizes a system-wide, voluntary demand response (DR) tool, called the Flex Alert program, designed to reduce energy usage during peak hours, particularly on hot summer afternoons when surges in electricity demand threaten to exceed available generation resources. However, the few analyses on the efficacy of CAISO Flex Alerts have produced inconsistent results and do not investigate how participation varies across sectors, regions, population demographics, or time. Evaluating the efficacy of DR tools is difficult as there is no ground truth in terms of what demand would have been in the absence of the DR event. Thus, we first define two metrics that to evaluate how responsive customers were to Flex Alerts, including the Flex Period Response, which estimates how much demand was shifted away from the Flex Alert period, and the Ramping Response, which estimates changes in demand during the first hour of the Flex Alert period. We then analyze the hourly load response of the residential sector, based on ∼200 000 unique homes, on 17 Flex Alert days during the period spanning 2015–2020 across the Southern California Edison (SCE) utility's territory and compare it to total SCE load. We find that the Flex Period Response varied across Flex Alert days for both the residential (−18% to +3%) and total SCE load (−7% to +4%) and is more dependent on but less correlated with temperature for the residential load than total SCE load. We also find that responsiveness varied across subpopulations (e.g. high-income, high-demand customers are more responsive) and census tracts, implying that some households have more load flexibility during Flex Alerts than others. The variability in customer engagement suggests that customer participation in this type of program is not reliable, particularly on extreme heat days, highlighting a shortcoming in unincentivized, voluntary DR programs.
Érika Mata et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 015004
This study develops a reproducible method for estimating the cost-efficient flexibility potential of a local or regional energy system. Future scenarios that achieve ambitious climate targets and estimate the cost-efficient flexibility potential of demonstration sites were defined. Flexible potentials for energy system assessment are upscaled from the demonstration sites in Eskilstuna (Sweden) and Lower Austria (Austria). As heat pumps (HPs) and district heating (DH) are critical for future heat demand, these sites are representative types of DH networks in terms of size and integration with the electricity grid. In both regions a TIMES model is used for energy system optimization, while for upscaling, Eskilstuna uses the building-stock model ECCABS, whereas Lower Austria uses a mixed integer linear programming optimization model, and the BALMOREL power system model. According to the modeling, HPs will dominate Eskilstuna's heating sector by 2040. In Lower Austria, DH becomes more prevalent, in combination with wood biomass and HPs. These findings are explained by the postulated technological-economic parameters, energy prices, and CO2 prices. We conclude that future electricity prices will determine future heating systems: either a high share of centralized HPs (if electricity prices are low) or a high share of combined heat-and-power (if electricity prices are high). Large-scale energy storage and biomass can be essential solutions as may deliver increased cost-effectiveness, if available and under certain conditions.
Stepp Mayes et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Energy 1 015001
As regional grids increase penetrations of variable renewable electricity (VRE) sources, demand-side management (DSM) presents an opportunity to reduce electricity-related emissions by shifting consumption patterns in a way that leverages the large diurnal fluctuations in the emissions intensity of the electricity fleet. Here we explore residential precooling, a type of DSM designed to shift the timing of air-conditioning (AC) loads from high-demand periods to periods earlier in the day, as a strategy to reduce peak period demand, CO2 emissions, and residential electricity costs in the grid operated by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). CAISO provides an interesting case study because it generally has high solar generation during the day that is replaced by fast-ramping natural gas generators when it drops off suddenly in the early evening. Hence, CAISO moves from a fleet of generators that are primarily clean and cheap to a generation fleet that is disproportionately emissions-intensive and expensive over a short period of time, creating an attractive opportunity for precooling. We use EnergyPlus to simulate 480 distinct precooling schedules for four single-family homes across California's 16 building climate zones. We find that precooling a house during summer months in the climate zone characterizing Downtown Los Angeles can reduce peak period electricity consumption by 1–4 kWh d−1 and cooling-related CO2 emissions by as much as 0.3 kg CO2 d−1 depending on single-family home design. We report results across climate zone and single-family home design and show that precooling can be used to achieve simultaneous reductions in emissions, residential electricity costs, and peak period electricity consumption for a variety of single-family homes and locations across California.
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Michaud et al
Large, utility-scale solar energy facilities are increasingly being deployed throughout the United States, with nearly 10,000 projects over 1 megawatt completed by the end of 2023. One understudied aspect of the decision making process for these solar projects concerns site suitability. The current body of literature on this topic has identified core infrastructure, such as substations or transmission lines, as important in this process, yet other variables serve as potentially important drivers. This research aims to provide policymakers, planners, and regulators with a practically applicable method to better identify areas that are suitable candidates for such solar facilities. In particular, this paper develops a replicable method that produces a site suitability index that accounts for a suite of variables that are considered key, positive factors in where solar facilities ought to locate, including: 1) economic factors; 2) critical infrastructure and high energy users; and 3) workforce. Ultimately, our work is valuable to government and local officials such as policymakers and planners with limited resources and in-house capacity to understand the suitability for energy infrastructure. In fact, providing an attainable index for the site suitability of utility-scale solar facilities reduces the burden on policy and planning related stakeholders to understand the competitive advantage of their regions and to convey it to interested developers.