IRENA at Scenario Forum 2019

While clean electricity is one of the main enablers for a clean energy transition, representing transition pathways with high shares of electrification across sectors is evolving territory to many models and scenarios. Accounting for the contribution of variable sources of energy (e.g. solar and wind) and associated technology solutions in end use can be challenging, for example, given limitations in geospatial and temporal granularity. Furthermore, innovation related to digitalization may have profound impacts on the fundamentals of future of energy systems, thus compounding the uncertainty inherent in long-term scenarios.

This session, co-organised by IRENA and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, took place during the 2019 Scenarios Forum. The session, titled “Renewable-based Electrification: How can we Improve Scenarios for Clean Energy Transition?” addressed how long-term energy scenarios can better account for the potentially transformational changes related to renewables-based electrification. A panel of international experts presented recent work on long-term energy scenarios that approaches this issue from various geographical and sectoral angles, and discussed where gaps need to be filled to better represent the complexities of this topic.

A summary of the session can be found here.

This session informed the Campaign on “Long-term Energy Scenarios (LTES) for the Clean Energy Transition”, organised under the umbrella of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM). The session was co-organized by IRENA and NREL/JISEA, the operating agent of the Campaign and a technical partner to the Campaign, respectively.