Cost and impact of weak medium term policies in the electricity system in Western North America

Abstract

We study the cost and lock in of carbon intensive technologies due to weak medium-term policies. We use SWITCH WECC—a power system capacity expansion optimization model with high temporal and geographical resolution. We test three carbon cap scenarios. For each scenario, we optimize the power system for a medium timeframe (2030) and a long timeframe (2050). In the medium timeframe optimizations, by 2030 coal replaces gas power. This occurs because the long optimization foresees the stronger carbon cap in 2050. Therefore, it is optimal to transition towards cleaner technologies as early as 2030. The medium-term optimization has higher costs in 2040 and 2050 compared to the long optimization. Therefore, to minimize total costs to reduce emissions by 80 % in 2050, we should optimize until 2050 or have stronger carbon cap policies by 2030 (such as 26 % carbon emissions reductions from 1990 levels by 2030 across the WECC).