Full Title: Electrification & Decarbonization: Exploring U.S. Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Scenarios with Widespread Electrification and Power Sector Decarbonization
Author(s): Daniel Steinberg, Dave Bielen, Josh Eichman, Kelly Eurek, Jeff Logan, Trieu Mai, Colin McMillan, Andrew Parker, Laura Vimmerstedt, and Eric Wilson
Publisher(s): National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Publication Date: July 1, 2017
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
This report, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, describes an initial analysis exploring the potential implications of widespread electrification of energy services in the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors on the future evolution of the U.S. electricity system. Given its exploratory nature, the analysis considers only a limited set of electrification, efficiency, and power sector decarbonization scenarios; in addition, estimates of the electrification potential of each end-use sector— buildings, industry, and transport—are based on a relatively aggregated analysis of end-use service and fuel demands by sector and state and, therefore, do not consider explicit technologies, adoption patterns, or other detailed issues that could ultimately affect results.
Ongoing and potential future work is designed to apply a suite of higher-fidelity sector-specific models to address some of the same questions as posed in the exploratory analysis. This followon work will use a detailed accounting framework of energy use in all sectors, explore a larger number of electrification technology options and scenarios, employ high-resolution sectorspecific bottom-up engineering models to project future electricity consumption patterns, and conduct detailed electricity system production cost modeling.
This study contributes to a considerable body of work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that explores the potential for clean energy and efficiency technologies, along with related research and development, demonstration, and deployment activities and policies, to affect the future evolution and operation of the U.S. electricity system