Renewable reshapeability and cost competitiveness of locations in achieving net-zero electricity supply

Achieving net zero by 2050 requires power systems that ensure a reliable and economical load supply, while incorporating a high share of renewables with inherent uncertainty across multiple timescales. Here, we develop and systematically evaluate a new measure called “renewable reshapeability” that determines how renewable-friendly a particular location is and the cost-efficiency for meeting normalized 1-GWh yr−1 electricity demand with renewable generation based on a two-stage stochastic optimization methodology. The approach optimizes the system design and configuration in 2030, 2040, and 2050 for representative Pacific Rim cities, with their past 44-year meteorological data (1980–2023) and projected demand patterns using the 11-year actual load data (2013−2023). Results indicate that high-latitude locations with prevalent seasonality discrepancy between renewable generation and electricity consumption have low renewable reshapeability and are less renewable-friendly as effective renewable reshaping requires expensive long-term energy storage. Even a high penalty pricing on fossil carbon emissions cannot achieve 100% renewable-based electricity supply because the cost of energy storages for addressing the seasonal demand-supply mismatch and daily intermittency is higher than using low-carbon baseload sources, such as fossil-fueled generation with carbon capture and storage. Our findings help design near- and long- term incentives and regulations around the deployment of low-carbon supply options.