IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v162y2020icp1684-1702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When is the sun going to shine for the Brazilian energy sector? A story of how modelling affects solar electricity

Author

Listed:
  • Barbosa, Juliana
  • Dias, Luís P.
  • Simoes, Sofia G.
  • Seixas, Júlia

Abstract

The energy sector has a vital role in climate change mitigation. In Brazil, the electricity generation sector is strongly dependent on hydropower generation, but thermoelectricity contribution has increased leading to a more carbon-intensive electricity mix. This trend will be aggravated with the expected significant increase in the electricity demand until 2050 and with the potential limitation of hydropower generation expansion due to environmental constraints. The extent of the role of solar power to overcome these challenges in the future has been hidden by energy modelling assumptions. A review on how solar energy has been considered in different models, was performed. The research further assessed the relevance of assumptions by developing an optimization model to explore the cost-effectiveness of solar electricity large-scale deployment up to 2050. The work found that most published solar energy assessments based on long-term energy modelling for Brazil currently are not updated regarding several assumptions, leading to models results where solar appears with a marginal role. The energy modeling exercise shows solar PV is cost-effective for Brazil, providing more than 36% of total electricity in 2050. This is a different conclusion from the energy and power modeling exercises conducted until now, where solar deployment has been underestimated.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbosa, Juliana & Dias, Luís P. & Simoes, Sofia G. & Seixas, Júlia, 2020. "When is the sun going to shine for the Brazilian energy sector? A story of how modelling affects solar electricity," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1684-1702.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:162:y:2020:i:c:p:1684-1702
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2020.09.091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120315160
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2020.09.091?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tundisi, J.G. & Goldemberg, J. & Matsumura-Tundisi, T. & Saraiva, A.C.F., 2014. "How many more dams in the Amazon?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 703-708.
    2. Bento, Nuno & Fontes, Margarida, 2016. "The capacity for adopting energy innovations in Portugal: Historical evidence and perspectives for the future," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 113(PB), pages 308-318.
    3. Fichter, Tobias & Soria, Rafael & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto & Lucena, Andre F.P., 2017. "Assessing the potential role of concentrated solar power (CSP) for the northeast power system of Brazil using a detailed power system model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 695-715.
    4. Sen, Souvik & Ganguly, Sourav, 2017. "Opportunities, barriers and issues with renewable energy development – A discussion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1170-1181.
    5. Lucena, André F.P. & Clarke, Leon & Schaeffer, Roberto & Szklo, Alexandre & Rochedo, Pedro R.R. & Nogueira, Larissa P.P. & Daenzer, Kathryn & Gurgel, Angelo & Kitous, Alban & Kober, Tom, 2016. "Climate policy scenarios in Brazil: A multi-model comparison for energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 564-574.
    6. Frate, Claudio Albuquerque & Brannstrom, Christian, 2017. "Stakeholder subjectivities regarding barriers and drivers to the introduction of utility-scale solar photovoltaic power in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 346-352.
    7. Unknown, 2016. "Energy for Sustainable Development," Conference Proceedings 253270, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies (IDSAsr).
    8. Sonja Simon & Tobias Naegler & Hans Christian Gils, 2018. "Transformation towards a Renewable Energy System in Brazil and Mexico—Technological and Structural Options for Latin America," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-26, April.
    9. Miranda, Raul & Simoes, Sofia & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2019. "Adding detailed transmission constraints to a long-term integrated assessment model – A case study for Brazil using the TIMES model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 791-803.
    10. Malagueta, Diego & Szklo, Alexandre & Soria, Rafael & Dutra, Ricardo & Schaeffer, Roberto & Moreira Cesar Borba, Bruno Soares, 2014. "Potential and impacts of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) integration in the Brazilian electric power system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 223-235.
    11. Portugal-Pereira, Joana & Köberle, Alexandre C. & Soria, Rafael & Lucena, André F.P. & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2016. "Overlooked impacts of electricity expansion optimisation modelling: The life cycle side of the story," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(P2), pages 1424-1435.
    12. Schmidt, Johannes & Cancella, Rafael & Pereira, Amaro O., 2016. "An optimal mix of solar PV, wind and hydro power for a low-carbon electricity supply in Brazil," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 137-147.
    13. Malagueta, Diego & Szklo, Alexandre & Borba, Bruno Soares Moreira Cesar & Soria, Rafael & Aragão, Raymundo & Schaeffer, Roberto & Dutra, Ricardo, 2013. "Assessing incentive policies for integrating centralized solar power generation in the Brazilian electric power system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 198-212.
    14. Hans Christian Gils & Sonja Simon & Rafael Soria, 2017. "100% Renewable Energy Supply for Brazil—The Role of Sector Coupling and Regional Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Chávez-Rodríguez, Mauro F. & Dias, Luís & Simoes, Sofia & Seixas, Júlia & Hawkes, Adam & Szklo, Alexandre & Lucena, Andre F.P., 2017. "Modelling the natural gas dynamics in the Southern Cone of Latin America," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 219-239.
    16. Luz, Thiago & Moura, Pedro & de Almeida, Aníbal, 2018. "Multi-objective power generation expansion planning with high penetration of renewables," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 2637-2643.
    17. Shahsavari, Amir & Akbari, Morteza, 2018. "Potential of solar energy in developing countries for reducing energy-related emissions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 275-291.
    18. Soria, Rafael & Lucena, André F.P. & Tomaschek, Jan & Fichter, Tobias & Haasz, Thomas & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto & Rochedo, Pedro & Fahl, Ulrich & Kern, Jürgen, 2016. "Modelling concentrated solar power (CSP) in the Brazilian energy system: A soft-linked model coupling approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(P1), pages 265-280.
    19. Soito, João Leonardo da Silva & Freitas, Marcos Aurélio Vasconcelos, 2011. "Amazon and the expansion of hydropower in Brazil: Vulnerability, impacts and possibilities for adaptation to global climate change," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 3165-3177, August.
    20. Miranda, Raul F.C. & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2015. "Technical-economic potential of PV systems on Brazilian rooftops," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 694-713.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marcus Vinícius Coelho Vieira da Costa & Osmar Luiz Ferreira de Carvalho & Alex Gois Orlandi & Issao Hirata & Anesmar Olino de Albuquerque & Felipe Vilarinho e Silva & Renato Fontes Guimarães & Robert, 2021. "Remote Sensing for Monitoring Photovoltaic Solar Plants in Brazil Using Deep Semantic Segmentation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miranda, Raul & Simoes, Sofia & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2019. "Adding detailed transmission constraints to a long-term integrated assessment model – A case study for Brazil using the TIMES model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 791-803.
    2. Sonja Simon & Tobias Naegler & Hans Christian Gils, 2018. "Transformation towards a Renewable Energy System in Brazil and Mexico—Technological and Structural Options for Latin America," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-26, April.
    3. Fichter, Tobias & Soria, Rafael & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto & Lucena, Andre F.P., 2017. "Assessing the potential role of concentrated solar power (CSP) for the northeast power system of Brazil using a detailed power system model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 695-715.
    4. Hans Christian Gils & Sonja Simon & Rafael Soria, 2017. "100% Renewable Energy Supply for Brazil—The Role of Sector Coupling and Regional Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-22, November.
    5. Howard, D.B. & Soria, R. & Thé, J. & Schaeffer, R. & Saphores, J.-D., 2020. "The energy-climate-health nexus in energy planning: A case study in Brazil," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Caiado Couto, Lilia & Campos, Luiza C. & da Fonseca-Zang, Warde & Zang, Joachim & Bleischwitz, Raimund, 2021. "Water, waste, energy and food nexus in Brazil: Identifying a resource interlinkage research agenda through a systematic review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    7. Soria, Rafael & Lucena, André F.P. & Tomaschek, Jan & Fichter, Tobias & Haasz, Thomas & Szklo, Alexandre & Schaeffer, Roberto & Rochedo, Pedro & Fahl, Ulrich & Kern, Jürgen, 2016. "Modelling concentrated solar power (CSP) in the Brazilian energy system: A soft-linked model coupling approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(P1), pages 265-280.
    8. McPherson, Madeleine & Mehos, Mark & Denholm, Paul, 2020. "Leveraging concentrating solar power plant dispatchability: A review of the impacts of global market structures and policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Bojana Škrbić & Željko Đurišić, 2023. "Novel Planning Methodology for Spatially Optimized RES Development Which Minimizes Flexibility Requirements for Their Integration into the Power System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-34, April.
    10. Gutiérrez-Alvarez, R. & Guerra, K. & Haro, P., 2023. "Market profitability of CSP-biomass hybrid power plants: Towards a firm supply of renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    11. Constantino Dário Justo & José Eduardo Tafula & Pedro Moura, 2022. "Planning Sustainable Energy Systems in the Southern African Development Community: A Review of Power Systems Planning Approaches," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-28, October.
    12. Fátima Lima & Joana Portugal‐Pereira & André F.P. Lucena & Pedro Rochedo & Jorge Cunha & Manuel Lopes Nunes & Alexandre Salem Szklo, 2015. "Analysis of energy security and sustainability in future low carbon scenarios for Brazil," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(3-4), pages 175-190, August.
    13. Tobias Junne & Sonja Simon & Jens Buchgeister & Maximilian Saiger & Manuel Baumann & Martina Haase & Christina Wulf & Tobias Naegler, 2020. "Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Multi-Sectoral Energy Transformation Pathways: Methodological Approach and Case Study for Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-28, October.
    14. Dranka, Géremi Gilson & Ferreira, Paula, 2018. "Planning for a renewable future in the Brazilian power system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 496-511.
    15. Joana Portugal-Pereira & Alexandre Koberle & André F. P. Lucena & Pedro R. R. Rochedo & Mariana Império & Ana Monteiro Carsalade & Roberto Schaeffer & Peter Rafaj, 2018. "Interactions between global climate change strategies and local air pollution: lessons learnt from the expansion of the power sector in Brazil," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 293-309, May.
    16. Soria, Rafael & Portugal-Pereira, Joana & Szklo, Alexandre & Milani, Rodrigo & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2015. "Hybrid concentrated solar power (CSP)–biomass plants in a semiarid region: A strategy for CSP deployment in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 57-72.
    17. Sven Teske & Thomas Pregger & Sonja Simon & Tobias Naegler & Johannes Pagenkopf & Özcan Deniz & Bent van den Adel & Kate Dooley & Malte Meinshausen, 2021. "It Is Still Possible to Achieve the Paris Climate Agreement: Regional, Sectoral, and Land-Use Pathways," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-25, April.
    18. Gutiérrez, R.E. & Haro, P. & Gómez-Barea, A., 2021. "Techno-economic and operational assessment of concentrated solar power plants with a dual supporting system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    19. Adrien Vogt‐Schilb & Stephane Hallegatte, 2017. "Climate policies and nationally determined contributions: reconciling the needed ambition with the political economy," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(6), November.
    20. Vakilifard, Negar & A. Bahri, Parisa & Anda, Martin & Ho, Goen, 2019. "An interactive planning model for sustainable urban water and energy supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 332-345.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:162:y:2020:i:c:p:1684-1702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.