[LDES-coremodel] [LDES] Questions to discuss during Thursday SWITCH modeling meeting

[Daniel M. KAMMEN]

Excellent set of questions, largely because the CA carbon neutrality target
for 2045 is complicated in itself (how do we map this onto CA electricity
beyond the 2030 goal of 60% RE?) and then the challenge of the US.

My suggestion would be:

CA moderate:
zero carbon electricity sector in 2045 (which is arguably too slow given
the 2045 economy-wide carbon neutrality goal of SB100)

CA aggressive:
zero carbon electricity by 2035 to fit with the Biden Administration plan

and then the hard part: what do we assume for the rest of the WECC.

CA aggressive is arguably the target given that the US is still one country
(right?) and the Biden plan applies across the full WECC.

It will make costs jump up if we don't make some aggressive Long-term
storage cost assessments.  But then again, that is the value of modeling,
right?

The other issue we will need to consider is H2.  Certainly a simple case of
all excess generation -> H2 and storage is a good start, but how we think
about industry and heavy vehicle decarbonization will largely determine how
we treat H2.

Note that EPRI now has a scenario out for that.

As one other case, here is our Energy Policy paper this week for China
using SWITCH where we use massive vehicle electrification to both drive
clean energy demand and to reduce petroleum use.

Dan



On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 1:37 PM Julia Szinai <jszinai at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> I've been slowly going through the SB100 report Sarah sent (thank you) and
> putting together some questions that came to mind related to SWITCH
> modeling of SB100 for the baseline. I don't know if there is already an
> agenda for the Thursday meeting, but if not, here are some questions for
> the group:
>
> *SB100 related questions:*
> 1. What CO2 target should we use for CA vs the WECC to capture the legal
> definition and/or spirit of SB100?
> - Do we have a 0 carbon target for CA and maintain the 80% carbon
> reduction from 1990 levels for the rest of WECC (inevitably creating
> resource reshuffling, but more realistic than having 0 carbon in all of
> WECC)?
> - Have there been any other updated CO2 or RPS targets in states besides
> CA in the WECC that need to be incorporated?
>
> 2. SB100 updates the RPS requirements to 60% by 2030 in California, and
> then requires 100% 'zero-emissions' by 2045. However, the definition of
> RPS-eligible is not exactly the same as 'zero-emissions.' Based on the
> SB100 report, we should be counting large hydro and nuclear as
> 'zero-emissions' resources for meeting SB100 targets after 2030, even
> though they are not eligible for RPS requirements for 2030. Do we need to
> modify the RPS module in SWITCH to add nuclear and large hydro as eligible
> after 2030, or it doesn't matter because the carbon cap is the main binding
> constraint?
> - By the way, I think the way the RPS module is written now may include
> all hydro (large and small) inadvertently which we should fix...It should
> only allow for hydro < 30 MW as RPS eligible until 2030.
>
> 3. Is storage RPS eligible/zero emissions? How does it get counted under
> the carbon cap and/or RPS?
> - I think this is a big unresolved topic among the energy agencies that
> was left unspecified in the original SB100 law.
>
> *Other questions:*
> 4. What does RESOLVE use for transmission costs and can we use those costs
> for SWITCH? Or are there studies available or more updated data we could
> use for SWITCH transmission costs?
> - We are probably underestimating the cost of transmission compared to
> storage and/or solar, and it is probably one reason why the solar and
> battery buildout in CA is still relatively low.
>
> 5. I haven't run the SWITCH model yet with the planning reserve margin
> module. I would like to do that soon to make sure everything still runs and
> is feasible. The default is 15% for the planning reserve margin. Do we
> still want to use that for the baseline model?
>
> Thanks,
> Julia
>
> --
> *Julia Szinai*
> PhD Candidate | Energy & Resources Group | University of California,
> Berkeley
> Graduate Student Researcher | Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
> NSF InFEWS Fellow
> Energy & Resources Group, MS '17
> Goldman School of Public Policy, MPP '17
> University of California, Berkeley
> jszinai at berkeley.edu
> _______________________________________________
> LDES-coremodel mailing list
> LDES-coremodel at lists.ucmerced.edu
> https://lists.ucmerced.edu/mailman/listinfo/ldes-coremodel
>
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