UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group Colloquium

Decarbonizing the electricity sector is essential for mitigating climate change, but planning low-carbon power systems under uncertainty requires balancing tradeoffs among costs, climate impacts, and socio-environmental considerations. In this talk, I present findings from a study of low-carbon power system pathways in Southern Africa under uncertainties in technology costs, socio-environmental constraints, and climate change impacts. Despite the region’s substantial hydropower potential and coal resources, rapidly declining costs of wind, solar, and battery storage significantly limit the cost-optimal expansion of new conventional hydropower and coal capacity. Incorporating socio-environmental constraints in the siting of land-intensive renewable and hydropower infrastructure modestly increases system costs, suggesting that stronger protections can be achieved with limited economic tradeoffs. At the same time, climate change impacts are also projected to increase system costs, although proactive planning that accounts for these impacts can mitigate cost increases. To highlight my work on energy justice, equity, and development, I will also briefly present a few other key research studies including the health and employment impacts of oil extraction and refining, adoption of energy efficient appliances in low-income households in India, and public perceptions of energy transitions in fossil-fuel-dependent regions, before outlining future research directions.

Speaker: Ranjit Deshmukh, UC Santa Barbara