Integrated assessment models are extensively used in the analysis of climate change mitigation and are informing national decision makers as well as contribute to international scientific assessments. This paper conducts a comprehensive review of techno-economic assumptions in the electricity sector among fifteen different global and national integrated assessment models. Particular focus is given to six major economies in the world: Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan and the US. The comparison reveals that techno-economic characteristics are quite different across integrated assessment models, both for the base year and future years. It is, however, important to recognize that techno-economic assessments from the literature exhibit an equally large range of parameters as the integrated assessment models reviewed. Beyond numerical differences, the representation of technologies also differs among models, which needs to be taken into account when comparing numerical parameters. While desirable, it seems difficult to fully harmonize techno-economic parameters across a broader range of models due to structural differences in the representation of technology. Therefore, making techno-economic parameters available in the future, together with of the technology representation as well as the exact definitions of the parameters should become the standard approach as it allows an open discussion of appropriate assumptions. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1.IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria 2.Norwegian Univ Sci & Technol NTNU, Ind Ecol Programme, Trondheim, Norway 3.Norwegian Univ Sci & Technol NTNU, Energy Transit Programme, Trondheim, Norway 4.Univ Fed Rio de Janeiro, COPPE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 5.Energy & Resources Inst TERI, New Delhi, India 6.Potsdam Inst Climate Impact Res PIK, Potsdam, Germany 7.PBL Netherlands Environm Assessment Agcy, The Hague, Netherlands 8.Univ Utrecht, Copernicus Inst Sustainable Dev, Utrecht, Netherlands 9.ICCS, Athina, Greece 10.Kyoto Univ, Dept Environm Engn, Kyoto, Japan 11.ERI, Beijing, Peoples R China 12.PNNL, Joint Global Change Res Inst, Washington, DC USA 13.European Commiss, JRC, Seville, Spain 14.Imperial Coll London, Grantham Inst, London, England 15.Mizuho Informat & Res Inst Inc MHIR, Tokyo, Japan 16.RFF CMCC European Inst Econ & Environm EIEE, Milan, Italy 17.Ctr Euromediterraneo Cambiamenti Climatici CMCC, Lecce, Italy 18.Res Inst Innovat Technol Earth RITE, Kizugawa, Japan 19.IIMA, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India 20.Natl Renewable Energy Lab, Golden, CO USA 21.NIES, Ctr Social & Environm Syst Res, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
Recommended Citation:
Krey, Volker,Guo, Fei,Kolp, Peter,et al. Looking under the hood: A comparison of techno-economic assumptions across national and global integrated assessment models[J]. ENERGY,2019-01-01,172:1254-1267