A zero emissions grid in US in 13 years would save US$1.2 trillion

A landmark new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US finds that if the world’s biggest economy decarbonises its grid in just 13 years it would save up to $US1.2 trillion (AU$1.8 trillion) in avoided health and climate costs.

The new study, done in conjunction with the US Department of Energy, plots a range of scenarios on how to reach net zero emissions on the world’s biggest grid in just 13 years.

Three of the four scenarios require additional power systems costs of between $US330 billion and $US400 billion, while a fourth – limited by transmission constraints and amount of wind that can be deployed – requires more storage, and more nuclear, that doubles the cost to around $US740 billion.

But each of the scenarios delivers considerable more benefits in avoided health impacts and climate change because it shuts down the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity.

According to NREL, those savings from a net zero grid include avoiding 130,000 premature deaths, saving up to $US400 billion, with a further saving of more than $US1.2 trillion when factoring in the avoided cost of damage from the impacts of climate change.

“Decarbonizing the power system is a necessary step if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided,” said Patrick Brown, an NREL analyst and co-author of the study.

“The benefits of a zero-carbon grid outweigh the costs in each of the more than 100 scenarios modelled in this study, and accelerated cost declines for renewable and clean energy technologies could lead to even larger benefits.”

The biggest challenge, according to the study, is finding a solution to the last 10 per cent to net zero.

The NREL says there is a growing body of research that shows that switching to high renewable energy power systems are possible and cost effective. But the “last 10 per cent challenge” is the part that adds significant costs because of the seasonal mismatch between variable renewables (wind and solar) and consumption.

NREL says it has been studying how to solve the last 10% challenge, including outlining key unresolved technical and economic considerations and modeling possible pathways and system costs to achieve 100% clean electricity.

Among the potential solutions cited by NREL are green hydrogen, advanced nuclear, price-responsive demand response, carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, and advanced grid controls. But they all require further R&D.

“There is no one single solution to transitioning the power sector to renewable and clean energy technologies,” said Paul Denholm, the principal investigator and lead author of the study.

“There are several key challenges that we still need to understand and will need to be addressed over the next decade to enable the speed and scale of deployment necessary to achieve the 2035 goal.”

(You can listen to a recent interview with Denholm on RenewEconomy’s popular Energy Insiders podcast here).

Still, it says the switch to renewables is likely to be accelerated by the new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which—in tandem with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)—which could slash grid emissions by 68 to 78 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, according to a number of analyses

By:  Giles Parkinson

From:. https://reneweconomy.com.au/building-a-zero-emissions-grid-in-us-in-just-13-years-would-save-us1-2-trillion/