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Reference pathway to zero emissions — Final report

The full report of the study commissioned by ACERA: the enabling and limiting conditions of the coal phase-out, tested against system operation, resource adequacy and dynamic response.

Download the report PDF · 7.7 MB · in Spanish

Against a backdrop of debate over closing Chile's coal plants by 2025 and an update to the country's energy policy, the Chilean Association of Renewable Energy and Storage commissioned this study from SPEC, working with ISCI and Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María.

The question is a concrete one: what has to be in place for the coal phase-out to happen on a timeline that does not compromise the security of the national grid, and to remove every fossil fuel from the generation mix by 2050 at the latest. Beyond answering it, the report proposes a technical, economic and environmental reference pathway that meets the grid's security and quality of service standards and Chile's NDC commitments.

Four work streams, not one simulation

  1. Initial pathway development. Expansion scenarios for generation, storage and transmission out to 2050 using centralised planning models, to establish the investment the system requires. That sets the baseline for comparing the plan the system needs — the adapted system — against investment already committed.
  2. Operational feasibility and reliability. Hourly static operation, the contribution of each source, the range of marginal costs, congestion and renewable curtailment. Resource adequacy is assessed over one million days of operation with different combinations of unit outages: more than 2,700 years of operating points.
  3. Security and quality of service. Around 35,000 operating points analysed to isolate the critical ones by available inertia, net demand and loading of relevant transmission sections, with the dynamic response to the most severe single contingencies.
  4. Definition of the final pathway, consolidating the findings of the three preceding streams.

What the study means by "enabling conditions"

Not just power plants. The report defines enabling and limiting measures as everything that keeps the system both economically efficient and matched to demand while preserving security and quality of service: development of generation, storage and transmission, operating restrictions and policies, fuel availability and regulatory adjustments.

Nor is the "pathway" merely a closure schedule: it is that schedule together with the enabling measures identified for each scenario.