EMF 37: Deep Decarbonization & High Electrification Scenarios for North America
Ongoing
Investigators
Abstract:
The EMF 37 study was initiated to help model builders and model users better understand the potential role of electrification in economy-wide decarbonization pathways in important economic sectors—transportation, buildings, and industry. Much of the deep decarbonization literature points to the decarbonization of the power sector followed by the electrification of all major end uses in the economy, but there is a lack of consensus on the ultimate potential for electrification, and rate at which it can be implemented given technical, behavioral, regulatory and economic limits – and competition from other promising emission mitigation options. This study is designed to explore the opportunities, limitations, trade-offs, and robustness of results associated with high electrification of the energy systems in North America.
The major motivating questions for this EMF study were:
- To what extent can the transportation, buildings, and industrial sectors be electrified, particularly in the context of policies to achieve deep decarbonization and “net-zero” emissions? How might technological and behavioral change and decarbonization efforts alter the extent of electrification?
- Beyond decarbonization efforts, what are the key drivers of electrification in the transportation, buildings, and industrial sectors?
- How might the availability of other decarbonization options such as carbon management and low-carbon fuel sources (e.g., biofuels or hydrogen in various forms) compete with electricity to moderate the extent of electrification?
- What are the implications of high electrification scenarios on the energy system and economic and environmental outcomes in North America in reference projections and across a broad range of decarbonization scenarios?
- How does technological change in the power sector shape electrification pathways?
Importantly, the study was designed to engage the large group of North American focused energy and economy-wide energy-economy models, as well as sectoral and technology experts forming study groups focused on transportation, industry, buildings and carbon management. These study groups were formed in early 2020 to help inform the study design at the very beginning of the study.
EMF 37 Progress
Very initial recruiting of the EMF 37 working group members started in summer and early fall 2019 with a very initial pre-study scoping meeting taking place September 26-27, 2019 in Washington DC even as EMF 33, EMF 34, EMF 35, and EMF 36 were still in progress. After that scoping meeting, the group decided on a set of preliminary questions to be addressed within the model inter-comparison study; sketched out a number of tentative common scenarios for the modeling teams to run to address those questions; formed initial study groups to go deeper into some of the technical and institutional issues that arose; and set a schedule for submission, reporting, and debugging model results for the first-round scenarios before a first full working group meeting. By mid-2020, an initial Steering Committee to help guide the overall progress of the study was established by PI John Weyant. This group interacted with various advisors and leading modeling and sectoral analysis experts to collect ideas on what the study should focus on and how it should be organized, especially in the Covid-19 environment in which the process was by then operating.
The initial in-person working group meeting was to have taken place in Washington DC on May 21-22, 2020 in conjunction with a presentation of the EMF 34 results on the afternoon of May 20th. This meetings was moved online and broken up into more manageable monthly online meetings starting in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. During the period from February 2020 until September 2020 the recruiting and establishment of four initial study groups was completed. These groups were: (1) Carbon Management; (2) Transportation Energy Use; (3) Building Energy Use; and (4) Industrial Energy Use, as well as the recruitment of a couple dozen US and Canadian energy systems modeling groups. These groups were then all brought together for monthly three- to four-hour online meetings starting in November 2020 with the steering committee vetting an initial plan for how to proceed in November and December of 2020, and with the four study groups organizing the agendas for meetings in January-June 2021 meetings around their interests.
During this period a small group of “Beta” round scenarios for the energy systems models were designed to familiarize everyone with the data management system being used and the variable and scenario definitions included in the results reporting template. The next few monthly meetings were used to review these initial results and develop a larger group of more integrated “Round #1” scenarios with input from the energy systems modelers and the leaders of the four study groups. Results for these scenarios were reviewed by the whole working group in a series of meetings from the fall of 2021 through 2022. At the same time, the four study groups convened their own monthly meeting to develop and push forward their own work plans and add energy systems modelers who wanted to add more depth in the representation of these sectors. This process helped both the systems modelers and the study groups pursue their objectives.
This process was then repeated in the winter and spring of 2022 (again through monthly online meetings) with a goal of developing a set of round #2 scenarios by the fall of 2022 and reviewing both overview and study group specific scenarios during late 2022 and early 2023. During this period, a number of cross-cutting writing teams were organized to review the results more comprehensively and in greater detail to draw insights for model, as well as policy and strategy development in greater detail. Eight cross-cut teams (including about a dozen experts per team) were established – (1) hydrogen, (2) equity, (3) ancillary air quality impacts, (4) a parallel European study, (5) bio-energy, (6) robust portfolio decision analysis, (7) electricity markets, and (8) a policy overview – and met on their own in between full working group meetings during late 2023 and early 2024. Finally, a number of individual modeling teams (seven initially) prepared papers highlighting unique insights developed from their running of the study scenarios and other scenarios they found particularly interesting.
Special Journal Issue Publications
Overview results from the first stage of the study were published in 2023 as the first contribution to a special issue of the Journal Energy and Climate Change (https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/1051QSKVX48). The journal has allowed the working group to add papers summarizing more updated and more detailed results being prepared by study participants online on a broad range of cross-cutting issues during late 2023 and 2024 as they became available. As of October 2024 eleven papers had been published (https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/1051QSKVX48), and nine additional papers are in review with the journal. Once these additional papers are published, all the final work of the group and set of supporting overview, study group, cross-cut papers, and modelers papers will be assembled online in Energy and Climate Change and briefings on the findings to interested parties on the results of the study are being planned for early in 2025.