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Today resource adequacy is most often maintained by installing natural gas plants to meet the peak load. In California, the current risk of inadequate electricity supply is highest around sunset in late summer. In a zero-carbon grid, resource adequacy will increasingly require adequate stored energy throughout the entire year. Here we seek to develop an intuition about the times of the year when resource adequacy may be most challenged for a solar-dominant system. We use a simplified approach and show that the month of the biggest challenge occurs in winter and can shift by more than two months depending on the amount of solar and storage that are built.

In 2015, ASEAN established a goal of increasing its renewable energy share in its energy portfolio from approximately 13–23% by 2025. Renewable electricity, especially intermittent and variable sources, presents challenges for grid operators due to the uncertain timing and quantity of electricity supply. Grid flexibility, the electric grid's ability to respond to changing demands and supply, now stands a key resource in responding to these uncertainties while maximizing the cost-effective role of clean energy. We develop and apply a grid flexibility assessment tool to assess ASEAN's current grid flexibility using six quantitative indicators: grid reliability, electricity market access; load profile ramp capacity; quality of forecasting tools; proportion of electricity generation from natural gas; and renewable energy diversity. We find that ASEAN nations cluster into three groups: better; moderately; and the least prepared nations. We develop an analytical ramp rate calculator to quantify expected load ramps for ASEAN in an integrated ASEAN Power Grid scenario. The lack of forecasting systems and limited electricity market access represent key weaknesses and areas where dramatic improvements can become cost-effective means to increase regional grid flexibility. As ASEAN pursues renewable energy targets, regional cooperation remains essential to address identified challenges. Member nations need to increase grid flexibility capacity to adequately prepare for higher penetrations of renewable electricity and lower overall system costs.

A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues.

There have been numerous emerging next generation solar cell technologies with the potential to disrupt the solar industry. Perovskites in particular have taken the spotlight recently with unprecedented efficiency improvements. To quantify the rate of innovation in next generation solar technologies, we used learning curves to model improvements in efficiency relative to three parameters: Time since first publication, cumulative publications, and cumulative patents. The learning rates found for perovskite solar cells are compared to those of dye-sensitized, and quantum dot solar cells. In doing so, this analysis aims to elicit a better understanding of the drivers of innovation for emerging solar technologies and identify technologies demonstrating extraordinary technological progress.

More than 6600 coal-fired power plants serve an estimated five billion people globally and contribute 46% of annual CO2 emissions. Gases and particulate matter from coal combustion are harmful to humans and often contain toxic trace metals. The decades-old Kosovo power stations, Europe's largest point source of air pollution, generate 98% of Kosovo's electricity and are due for replacement. Kosovo will rely on investment from external donors to replace these plants. Here, we examine non-CO2 emissions and health impacts by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to analyze trace metal content in lignite coal from Obilic, Kosovo. We find significant trace metal content normalized per kWh of final electricity delivered (As (22.3 ± 1.7), Cr (44.1 ± 3.5), Hg (0.08 ± 0.010), and Ni (19.7 ± 1.7) mg/kWhe). These metals pose health hazards that persist even with improved grid efficiency. We explore the air-pollution-related risk associated with several alternative energy development pathways. Our analysis estimates that Kosovo could avoid 2300 premature deaths by 2030 with investments in energy efficiency and solar PV backed up by natural gas. Energy policy decisions should account for all associated health risks, as should multilateral development banks before guaranteeing loans on new electricity projects.

Renewable energy–such as photovoltaics and wind power–is rapidly moving into the mainstream, with global solar capacity set to outproduce nuclear energy capacity for the first time. But a major holdup has been how to store the electricity produced by renewables; consequently, good, cheap, long-lasting battery storage has been the Holy Grail of R&D in this area. But how close are we in reaching this goal? To track progress, the authors have introduced a new, “two-factor” model of analyzing innovations in energy storage that accounts not only for total sales of a particular technology but also for the degree of investment in innovation, measured by looking at the number of new patents issued in energy storage technology.

The clean energy transition requires a co-evolution of innovation, investment, and deployment strategies for emerging energy storage technologies. A deeply decarbonized energy system research platform needs materials science advances in battery technology to overcome the intermittency challenges of wind and solar electricity. Simultaneously, policies designed to build market growth and innovation in battery storage may complement cost reductions across a suite of clean energy technologies. Further integration of R&D and deployment of newstorage technologies paves a clear route toward cost-e?ective low-carbon electricity. Here we analyse deployment and innovation using a two-factor model that integrates the value of investment in materials innovation and technology deployment over time from an empirical dataset covering battery storage technology. Complementary advances in battery storage are of utmost importance to decarbonization alongside improvements in renewable electricity sources. We find and chart a viable path to dispatchable US$1W-1 solar with US$100kWh-1 battery storage that enables combinations of solar, wind, and storage to compete directly with fossil-based electricity options.

With dramatic cost declines and performance improvements, both mini-hydropower and solar photovoltaics (PV) now serve as core options to meet the growing demand for electricity in underserved regions worldwide. We compare the net energy return on energy invested (EROI) of mini-hydropower and solar electricity using five existing mini-hydropower installations in northern Thailand with grid-connected solar PV simulations. Both assessments use a life cycle perspective to estimate the EROI. We find that distributed mini-grids with penetrations of solar PV up to 50% of annual generation can exceed the EROI of some fossil-based traditional centralized grid systems. The analysis will help planners and engineers optimize mini-grids for energy payback and utilize local resources in their design. The results suggest higher EROI ratios for mini-hydropower plants than solar PV, though mini-hydropower plants typically yield lower EROI ratios than their large-scale hydropower counterparts.

We have developed an analytic platform to analyze the electricity options, costs, and impacts for Kosovo, a nation that is a critical part of the debate over centralized versus distributed electricity generation and the role of fossil fuels versus cleaner electricity options to meet growing demands for power. We find that a range of alternatives exists to meet present supply constraints all at a lower cost than constructing a proposed 600 MW coal plant. The options include energy efficiency measures, combinations of solar PV, wind, hydropower, and biomass, and the introduction of natural gas. A 30 EUR ton-1 shadow price on CO2 increases costs of coal generation by at least 330 million EUR. The results indicate that financing a new coal plant is the most expensive pathway to meet future electricity demand.

Container ports are widely known as hubs of economic activity offering businesses access to international markets. The nation's largest ports move hundreds of billions of dollars of goods annually and often provide income to local communities on the order of $50 billion. The vessels and equipment that operate at ports, however, are responsible for high levels of greenhouse gas and criteria air pollutant emissions. These emissions contribute greatly to global climate change and have detrimental health effects on near-port neighborhoods, which have historically been composed of low-income Black and Latinx community members. This article suggests strategies and research needs to rectify environmental and health-related disparities in U.S. ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]