Scenario Discovery Analysis of Drivers of Solar and Wind Energy Transitions Through 2050.

Deep human‐Earth system uncertainties and strong multi‐sector dynamics make it difficult to anticipate which conditions are most likely to lead to higher or lower adoption of renewable energy, and models project a broad range of future solar and wind energy shares across future scenarios. To elucidate these dynamics, we explore a large data set of scenarios simulated from the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM), and use scenario discovery to identify the most significant factors affecting solar and wind adoption by mid‐century. We generated a data set of over 4,000 scenarios from GCAM by varying 12 different socioeconomic factors at high and low levels, including assumptions about future energy demand, resource costs, and fossil fuel emissions paths, as well as specific technology assumptions including wind and solar backup requirements and storage costs. Using scenario discovery, we assess the most important factors globally and regionally in creating high fractions of solar and wind energy and explore interconnected effects on other systems including water and non‐CO2 emissions. Globally and regionally, we found that solar and wind‐related technology costs were the primary drivers of high wind and solar energy adoption, though a few regions depend heavily on other parameters like carbon capture and storage costs, population and gross domestic product trajectories, and fossil fuel costs. We also identify four key paths to high solar and wind energy by mid‐century and discuss their tradeoffs in terms of other outcomes. Plain Language Summary: There are many systems involved in energy transitions, which makes it difficult to anticipate which factors are most likely to result in higher renewable energy adoption in the future, and the currently available projections of future renewable shares are highly uncertain. We focus here on wind and solar energy in particular, and use a model that represents a variety of the different systems involved (including energy, agriculture, land use, and water) to create a set of nearly 4,000 scenarios that span a wide range of possible futures. Each scenario is driven by a combination of different parameter inputs chosen based on factors that we expect to impact wind and solar energy shares. By analyzing this set of scenarios, we can find the most important drivers, and combinations of drivers, globally and in each of the 32 different regions represented in our model. Additionally, we look at the scenarios that produced the highest fractions of wind and solar energy and identify four different combinations of parameters that can lead to these high renewable fractions. For each of the four paths, we explore the implications in terms of outcomes like water consumption, air pollution, and food prices, and discuss the resulting tradeoffs. Key Points: Solar and wind energy transitions are complex multi‐sectoral problemsWhile globally solar and wind technology costs drive renewable shares, regionally different drivers become more importantDifferent combinations of drivers can result in similar high solar and wind energy but have very different implications across other sectors [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]