Exploring carbon futures in the EU power sector: Using Exploratory System Dynamics Modelling and Analysis to explore policy regimes under deep uncertainty

Exploring carbon futures in the EU power sector: Using Exploratory System Dynamics Modelling and Analysis to explore policy regimes under deep uncertainty

Loonen, E.
Pruyt, E.
Hamarat, C.

Technology, Policy and Management

Multi Actor Systems

2013-07-21

The European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in combination with other renewable electricity (RES-E) support schemes such as (premium) feed-in tariffs or tradable green certificates do not guarantee a carbon neutral power sector in 2050. This paper shows that many plausible futures of high carbon emissions exist when no substantial efficiency measures are taken in high growth futures. Using System Dynamics (SD) in combination with Exploratory Modelling and Analysis (EMA), it seems that the main European energy policies might result in high levels of carbon abatement but have very limited guarantees whatsoever. There are potential ‘free lunches’ for policy makers to reduce carbon emissions but these will probably not suffice when ambition levels remain high. This paper sheds new light on the path to find policy synergies for the European electricity sector with the aim to rule out lurking catastrophic futures of high carbon emissions combined with high costs for society.

carbon emissions
deep uncertainty
energy transition
EU power sector
ESDMA
robust policy design

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a7307788-df9b-4267-bf00-63f315c7af26

System Dynamics Society

978-1-935056-12-06

Proceedings of the 31st International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Cambridge, USA, 21-25 July 2013

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2013 The Author(s)