Investment Scenarios for Low Carbon Electricity in Europe

Abstract

In a context of carbon emissions reduction, this article aims at widening the scope of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) report entitled « The interaction of Nuclear Energy and Renewable: System Effects in Low Carbon Electricity System » (2012) to the European electric supply by studying the conditions of industrial investments in low carbon technologies over the next 30 years. These conditions can be either favorable or not to, on the one hand, the renewable energies and, on the other hand, the nuclear technologies, according to 3 main dynamically quantified drivers: 1. Technical change, i.e. relative evolutions of efficiency and costs of available technologies (gas, coal, wind...); 2. Policy, i.e. incentive framework given by European energy policies (nuclear, climate...); 3. Economic, i.e. structure of electricity markets (level of centralization...). A total of 24 scenarios are developed using an imaginative approach, i.e. assuming different possibilities for the future change in 3 main drivers. Finally we have found: 2 scenarios of them prove to be the most favorable to renewable energies; 2 scenarios favorable to both renewable and nuclear, for the interaction of nuclear and renewable in the electricity system is not necessarily favorable to nuclear investment. These scenarios are then discussed in view of the quantitative drivers mentioned above.