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Going Green: Cost and GHG Emissions in the Canadian Electricity Sector

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posted on 2018-02-21, 07:23 authored by Jason Arbour, Jordan Juravsky, Shahar Lazarev, Josh Zwiebel

Electricity generation in Canada contributes significantly to national carbon emissions. In order to meet global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets, Canada must pivot away from generating electricity from fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas and move towards electricity sources with smaller carbon footprints, such as wind, solar, and hydroelectricity. However, because renewable energy technology grows progressively more cost-effective with time, there is an economic incentive to withhold investment in the short term.


This study determines the optimal time and type of energy to invest in to keep costs at a minimum while still meeting worldwide emissions targets. Our group established an emissions ceiling (the maximum amount of carbon dioxide one can release into the atmosphere while adhering to emissions targets) for the Canadian electricity sector by proportionally scaling down the worldwide GHG cap. Using data from OpenEI, our group used feedforward neural networks to predict the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for Canada's three largest renewable sources of electricity (wind, solar, and hydroelectricity) and its two biggest fossil fuel sources (coal and natural gas) over time. Canada's future demand for electricity was predicted using the same technique, and with data provided by StatsCan. Our group developed an ideal investment plan by meeting each year's increasing electricity demand with the least expensive generation method of that year. When the emissions ceiling was reached, electricity from fossil fuels would be completely phased out, making the Canadian electricity sector completely carbon-free.


Results demonstrated that wind energy is currently the most cost-effective method of generating electricity (figure 2), and should be invested in immediately to meet growing demand. We predicted that the electricity sector will reach its emissions ceiling by 2033 if one followed the ideal investment plan outlined above. When the ceiling is reached, solar, hydroelectric and wind-based electricity generation will all be more cost-efficient than either coal or natural gas, providing multiple viable replacements for fossil fuels.

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