ABSTRACT This paper collates, for the first time, the results of a multidisciplinary analysis of environmental, reliability, and cost trade-offs across three generation mix scenarios through 2050 in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) power system in Texas. The overarching goal of the research that started in 2021 was to start filling some gaps in policy discussions, which ultimately try to balance society’s inherently conflicting objectives of affordable and continuous electricity service that also minimizes environmental impacts. Gaps typically arise because it is difficult to reconcile the complexity of the electricity systems and global supply chains. To that end, we pursued several research avenues. First, we conducted the life-cycle assessment of numerous environmental impacts on air, land, and water across the complete lives of power plants, transmission lines, and batteries, from extraction and processing of resources necessary to manufacture equipment to end-of-life disposal of the same rather than looking only at the power plant operations. Second, we conducted granular dispatch modeling using commercial software, which is essential to ensure that the power system remains reliable (i.e., the lights stay on at all times across the whole system) at lowest cost under different generation mixes. Finally, we estimated the cost of building and reliably operating these generation mixes, from which we extracted a cost of electricity metric that is representative of costs paid by consumers in the ERCOT system. This approach can be incorporated into routine annual assessments by system operators and will provide policymakers with a nuanced comparison of future electricity scenarios across multiple dimensions. (see the Graphical Abstract below) GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Gülen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.