The ClimateWorks Foundation is collaborating with Enerdata again, to work on specialised questions related to the energy systems. After a recent study on green hydrogen, this new contract asks an innovative question: If additional renewables were available, where would they best be used?
The study uses the case of Brazil, at a 2030 horizon and includes all the main forms of renewable energy: biomass, electricity, hydrogen or e-fuels. The objective is to define the “optimal” exploitation of each unit of land dedicated to renewable energy and how to dispatch them across the entire energy system, so a system perspective is essential. The main focus is on emission reductions, but several other dimensions are considered in the equation: air pollution, employment, and economic gains.
Enerdata will build a tool and deliver indicators considering all dimensions and all energy sectors of the economy. The 2030 horizon for Brazil is based on the POLES-Enerdata energy system model, bringing overall consistency and representing trade-offs between economic and non-economic drivers of the development of all energy sources and all sectors of demand.
In practice, the first stage of the tool is evaluating how much renewable energy can be produced from the same unit of land, depending on its form: growing biomass, installing photovoltaics for electricity, or transforming this electricity into hydrogen or e-fuels. The second step involves a comprehensive modelling work to evaluate the impacts of renewables on each sector of the economy, for each renewable energy form. The final stage combines these results with estimated co-benefits of renewables on employment, air pollution, or direct economic gains.
The result is a combined index that demonstrates the relative interest of using renewables through each vector (biomass, electricity, hydrogen or e-fuels) and applied to each energy sector, going from electrification of vehicles to sustainable aviation fuels, from industry branches to buildings end-uses and energy supply.
Enerdata will deliver the tool to the ClimateWorks Foundation, present key findings and provide a training. The user will be able to parameterise the tool and adjust its assumptions in order to observe the impacts on the relative indexes. This will help inform debates on the optimal uses of land and renewable energy.