Early Decarbonisation of the European Energy System Pays Off

In the context of increasing public climate change awareness and plummeting costs for wind and solar photovoltaics, discussions on increasing CO 2 reduction targets for Europe have started. Here, we model alternative transition paths with strict carbon budget for the sector-coupled networked European energy system. We show that up-to-date costs for wind and solar and the inclusion of highly resolved time series for balancing make climate action with renewables more cost-effective than previously seen. Ambitious CO 2 reductions in the short term not only trigger a cheaper transition but also incentivise more stable CO 2 prices and build rates for the required new capacities which could be beneficial from the point of view of investors, social acceptance, local economies, and jobs creation.

Keywords: myopic optimisation, carbon dioxide reduction, grid integration of renewable power, sector coupling, open energy modelling

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Victoria, Marta and Zhu, Kun and Brown, Tom and Andresen, Gorm B. and Greiner, Martin, Early Decarbonisation of the European Energy System Pays Off. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3584347 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3584347

This version of the paper has not been formally peer reviewed.