Environmental Research: Energy

Fuel subsidies have been a central topic of discussion for decades in the Global South, including Nigeria, often implemented to enhance energy affordability for the population. However, on 29 May 2023, the President of Nigeria announced the elimination of the fuel subsidy, resulting in an increase in energy and electricity costs exceeding 300%. This resulted in widespread protests nationwide, significantly affecting all sectors, particularly enterprises. Thus, this study examines the impact of fuel subsidy removal on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as well as their level of awareness and correlation with willingness to transition to renewable energy technologies (RETs), utilizing original survey data from 1461 MSMEs across Nigeria. Results indicate that the removal of fuel subsidies impacted 90% of MSMEs surveyed. Regarding the willingness to transition to RETs, 77.2% of MSMEs expressed a positive inclination, whereas 11.7% were unwilling to undertake this transition. The willingness of MSMEs to transition is influenced by several factors, including state of residence, geographical area (settlement), level of education, enterprise category, the role of the respondents, energy type utilized by the enterprise, and the level of awareness of various RETs. The study’s findings enhance understanding of the factors influencing the adoption of RETs among MSMEs in Nigeria and the potential to inform strategies for sustainable energy development. Furthermore, the identification of specific factors influencing the transition decision provides valuable insights for targeted interventions and policymaking.

High energy burdens challenge nearly a quarter of U.S. households, a fraction which could increase under climate change due to its impacts on space heating and cooling usage. Using detailed building models, physics-based building simulations, and downscaled meteorological data, we quantify seasonal and annual household energy costs for nearly 6,600 low-income households across 25 U.S. cities under historic and future climates. Climate change will, on average, reduce households’ median annual energy costs in heating-dominated cities by 4-7%, and increase them 1-6% in hot-humid cities. But climate change will increase summer energy costs for most households and cities, with average households’ total energy costs in each city seeing summer increases of 2-10%. Furthermore, buildings with characteristics commonly associated with low-income households (e.g. high air infiltration rates) are particularly vulnerable to rising summer energy costs under climate change. Absent increasing household wages or support, our results suggest climate change will exacerbate annual energy burdens across the southern U.S., and increase summer energy burdens while alleviating winter energy burdens in most U.S. cities.

Scholars from a wide range of disciplines have grappled with defining and assessing the limitations and opportunities for "just" low carbon energy transitions. Here, we offer an alternative approach to developing a framework for just transition that is grounded in long-term participatory action research with environmental justice communities in Appalachia. We ground our discussion in literature from both scholars and social movements, as well as experiences of the authors through collective autoethnography. Specifically, our work seeks to bring land ownership to the forefront of conversations about economic development in Appalachia and about energy transition more broadly, and to expand the perspectives of directly impacted communities in the scholarly literature. For the past 7 years, the contributors to this article have worked to build a broad-based "land study collective" to support public knowledge, action, and policy focused on the role of land ownership in both incumbent energy systems and transition dynamics. We discuss our shared goals, our process of building the collective and defining and studying research questions across geographically dispersed stakeholders, and vignettes from empirical research of collective members. We conclude with challenges and considerations for others who may want to integrate participatory research on land ownership into their just transition frameworks. We pay special attention to the ethics and empirical benefits of collective autoethnography for developing just transition frameworks that incorporate the lived experiences of those most impacted by energy extraction regimes.

Coal power has rapidly declined in the US, dropping from 45% to 19% of electricity generation over 2010–2022. While this rapid transition is critical for decarbonization, it has devastating economic consequences for coal-dependent communities. Policymakers in numerous states are now grappling with how to provide support for transition-impacted communities. This study traces the process of just transition policymaking in five coal-producing states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, and Utah. We use process tracing methods and policy process theory to identify key factors in policymaking, specifically related to policy windows, policy entrepreneurs, and policy feedback. We find considerable variation across states in both policy processes and outcomes, reflecting a period of policy innovation and experimentation among early adopters. Yet we also find broad patterns with party control: Democrat-led states included transition funding as part of comprehensive legislative packages on climate and clean energy, while Republican-led states had smaller, standalone programs through more idiosyncratic policy processes. Overall, the increasingly cooperative stance of some utilities and the diverse coalition of support signals an important shift in the political economy of energy transitions.

Recent work on energy demand has outlined a series of different factors that determine patterns of energy use and the importance of the social relations that underpin them. Here, we extend calls to recognise that energy consumption is rooted in people’s homes and communities by illuminating the significance of rhythms in contemporary patterns of energy demand. We argue that renewed attention on social relations should also focus analysis on the various rhythms and temporalities that influence how people use energy—and how such tempos and contexts change and evolve over time. To do so, we review recent work to outline a framework of how these rhythms and temporalities influence social relations and vice-versa and methods for more holistic understandings of energy demand and potential interventions.

As the power grid is undergoing rapid transformations, numerous questions are emerging about its vulnerability to wide-area extreme events (WAEE), which could influence its operations. Although various systems are being explored, relatively few analyses have been conducted to date regarding the impact of correlated outages during WAEEs on the grid's ability to balance resources with demand. This study addresses this gap by conducting a resource adequacy analysis for a hurricane-inspired WAEE on a 2035 synthetic power grid system for the United States. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted to characterize the relative impact of weather on unserved energy. Our results indicate that although the magnitude and duration of the shortfalls vary depending on weather conditions, persistent shortfalls are observed in some regions. Initial explorations indicate a strong correlation between transmission-constrained regions and persistent shortfalls observed in our analysis. Future work could generate improved representations for generator outages as well as causal analyses of these shortfalls to improve understanding of drivers as well as possible mitigation strategies. Continued exploration of extreme weather impacts on the grid is important to develop more robust understanding of the reliability and resilience of our power systems, especially as they undergo rapid transformations.

Weather conditions associated with low electricity production from renewable energy sources (RESs) can result in so called ‘dunkelflaute’ events. For power system relying significantly on RES, such events can pose a risk for maintaining resource adequacy, i.e. the balance between generation and demand. Coincidence of a coldspell can enhance this risk. In this paper, we perform a literature review of different methods to identify dunkelflaute events from hourly RES production and load data alone. We then validate three of these methods by comparing their results with periods of shortage identified from a detailed power system simulation model used by grid operators. Strengths and weaknesses of these methods are discussed in terms of their data requirements, ease of application, and skill in detecting dunkelflaute events. We find that all three dunkelflaute event detection methods have some ability to identify potential energy shortages, but none are able to detect all events. Most likely other factors such as the presence of energy storage capacity, non-weather-dependent outages, and model-related factors limit the skill of these methods. We find that the methods perform best if the residual load is used as input, rather than hourly RES production or load alone. Overall, we find that the method Otero’22, which defines dunkelflaute events as residual load above a given percentile threshold, yields the best results while being straightforward to implement and requiring only data with daily resolution. The results hold for countries relying on a small or a large share of RES production in their electricity mix.

As global coal transitions intensify, their social consequences are increasingly felt by workers and communities whose livelihoods are intertwined with fossil fuels. In response, the concept of just transitions emerged as a framework which seeks to establish a socio-economic support system for affected workers, promote economic diversification, and ensure inclusive, participatory decision-making. This paper explores the role of trade unions in shaping just transitions, focusing on the experiences of Germany and India. Drawing on the power resources approach, which categorizes union power into structural, institutional, associational, and societal dimensions, the study examines how German unions such as IG BCE successfully leveraged these resources to secure robust social protections during coal phase-out. based on in-depth interviews, grievance documents and secondary literature, the paper then assesses the current status and potential of Indian coal unions to do the same. While deeply embedded in local economies, Indian unions remain marginal to formal transition planning. However, this moment presents a critical opportunity for Indian unions, to rebuild structural and associational power by organizing informal coal workers and engaging with workers in emerging clean energy sectors. The unions can revive institutional power by strategically leveraging their longstanding ties with political parties and representation in tripartite bodies. By embracing social-movement unionism, unions can broaden their agenda to push for social protection and sustainable economic diversification beyond the factory floor. This study contributes to the literature on labor and energy transitions by outlining pathways for union-led, inclusive transitions in emerging economies.

Blue carbon ecosystems, predominantly compounds of mangroves and sea herbs, represent a critical nexus between ecological health, economic vitality and climate resilience. These ecosystems are homeless potential for carbon kidnapping, serving as formidable allies in the battle against climate change. The meaning of these environments extends beyond capturing and storing atmospheric carbon; They also increase biodiversity and reinforce coastal resilience, thus enriching the ecological tissue on which numerous species, including humans, depend (Raihan, 2023). Mangroves are salt tolerant trees that thrive in tides along the tropical and subtropical backs. Its dense root systems not only stabilize coastal lines, but also facilitate sediment imprisonment, promoting conditions conducive to carbon accumulation. This process, called blue carbon sequestration, allows mangroves to store carbon in biomass and underlying soils, reaching up to four to five times the carbon storage capacity of terrestrial forests (RAIHAN, 2023). It is estimated that mangrove ecosystems will be carbon to significantly exceed rates of non-coasal ecosystems, making them a highly effective natural solution in global carbon management strategies.

Coal has long history in Ohio and across the Appalachian region (Crowell, 1995). The industry has had a major impact on the communities in various ways from underground mining, surface mining, and coal-fired electricity generation (Lobao et al., 2016; Keenan 2010). As the U.S. moves away from coal, the mines and coal-fired power plants close, creating significant economic hardships for the communities that relied on the coal industry (Blaaker, Woods, Oliver, 2012; Grubert, 2012; Haggerty, Haggerty, Roemer, 2018; Grubert, 2020). Yet even after the industry has left, the residents of many towns still felt connected to coal and still consider themselves a “coal community”. Local history and industry messaging help re-enforce this idea, but those factors are part of a larger phenomenon around the growing and shifting image of coal (Bell & York, 2010; Lewin, 2019). This paper examines how the image of coal has grown over time to be associated with many different values that coal community members identify with and want to attach to themselves. From hardworking coal miners, to town-defining power plant smokestacks, to hunting and fishing on reclaimed coal lands, the image of coal has come to represent a myriad of things that still represent these coal towns, allowing these communities to interact with the image of coal long after the industry and tangible impact of coal has left. In analyzing interview data with fifty coal employees, local leaders and town residents from four coal communities across southeast Ohio and northern West Virginia at varying stages of coal transition, this paper uses concepts from postmodern social theory to illustrate the nature of how the meanings and identity of coal towns persist even after there is no longer coal to advance our understanding of how coal-dependent communities continue to grapple with the societal transition away from coal energy .

Solar energy is the fastest-growing renewable electricity source globally. Under the guise of the green transition, solar energy is portrayed by energy optimists as sustainable despite its negative environmental and social externalities. The justice and equity dynamics of solar energy adoption have not been adequately explored in the Global South, where there are fewer incentives to transition away from carbon-based energy. South Africa poses a unique exception where, under a national energy crisis, load shedding (i.e. rolling electricity outages) has led to an exponential increase in household solar adoption. In order to quantify energy justice dynamics, we manually mapped solar installations for a representative sample of 300 urban census tracts across South Africa. We found that while solar adoption increased at a rate of 140% per year between 2016 and 2023, it was unevenly distributed over socio-economic geographies, particularly when comparing white and previously disadvantaged population groups (Black African, Colored, and Indian). Household solar adoption was close to zero in census tracts with income levels just above or below the poverty line, whereas high-income tracts installed nearly 2 panels per household, on average. Similarly, solar adoption is 73 times higher in majority white census tracts compared to those with majority previously disadvantaged racial groups (average of 3.5 m² vs 0.048 m² panel area per person). Using satellites that measure nighttime light radiance, we found that solar panel adoption is associated with less severe nighttime light declines, suggesting solar increases household resilience to load shedding. Census tracts with majority Black African residents show declines in nighttime light that are twice as large as those in majority White tracts, thereby mirroring the solar adoption pattern. Our findings illustrate the extremes of energy injustice in the Global South where existing social asymmetries are perpetuated and amplified in the green energy transition.

Variable renewable energy (VRE) droughts are periods of low renewable electricity production due to natural variability in the weather and climate. These compound renewable energy droughts occur when two or more (typically wind and solar) generation sources are in low availability conditions at the same time. Compound wind and solar droughts are most commonly studied at the hourly and daily timescale due to the short-term nature of energy markets and battery storage capacity. However the seasonal time scale allows for the examination of broader climate and hydrologic patterns that influence a broader renewable energy portfolio and inform the needs for long-duration energy storage. In this study, we use a newly developed dataset of coincident renewable generation to characterize seasonal compound VRE droughts which include wind, solar and hydropower at grid-relevant spatial scales across the contiguous United States (US). Along with the frequency, duration, magnitude, and spatial scale, we specifically examine these climate patterns with a composite climate analysis. Results for the historical period (1982–2019) indicate that seasonal compound VRE droughts can last up to 5 months and occur most frequently in the Fall. While not an established ‘climate stress’ to consider in reliability studies yet, we demonstrate the impact of seasonal energy droughts on a resource adequacy study over the Western US interconnection using a nodal bulk power grid model. We further discuss how seasonal compound VREs can inform the sizing of long-duration energy storage and market incentives to manage short-term extreme events like heat waves and cold snaps while considering seasonal conditions.

This paper calls attention to an underexamined aspect of the US coal industry in the mid to late twentieth century. The paper examines the case of an American coal mining tradition, the midsummer miners’ vacation, and situates the vacation tradition within the US coal industry’s shift from underground Appalachian mines to western surface mines. The authors collated weekly US coal production data produced over a 70 year period, then analyzed the results through the lens of change dynamics within the coal industry. To determine whether the midsummer vacation period seen in Appalachia had a significant impact on coal production, a generalized linear model on the Z-transformed production data was conducted. The analysis demonstrates that the effect of the miners’ vacation on coal production was statistically significant in Appalachia during the summer vacation period. The authors argue that the rise and fall of the midsummer miners’ vacation—and the marked spatial differences in the holiday’s observance—highlight the shifts in labor, technology, geography and economics that redefined coal work in the late twentieth century.

Energy system models (ESMs) inform the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Optimal system design is influenced by the shape and magnitude of electricity demand. Demands will change as decarbonisation efforts across sectors aim at electrification. However, many ESMs oversimplify the complexity of demand changes driven by individual adoption decisions. Agent-based models (ABMs) allow for incorporating behavioural theories capturing this complexity, but rely on assumptions about factors like energy prices and emissions affecting adoption behaviour. This work introduces a novel framework, CanAdopt, that integrates an ABM with an ESM, alleviating assumption requirements in both models. The capabilities of the novel framework are demonstrated for scenario analysis of policy impacts in the energy and residential heating sectors. The ABM models heating technology adoption and residential electricity demands for the ESM, which optimises capacity expansion and yields electricity prices and embedded emissions for the ABM. Both models cover 2020–2050 and are executed sequentially eight times. Applied to Ontario, Canada, the most progressive scenario achieves net-zero by 2035 and 2040 in the residential sector and power sector, respectively. The total transition costs are 327 billion CAD in the residential sector and 395 billion CAD in the power sector. Cumulative heating related emissions increase by 43% through a five-year delay in achieving net-zero, underscoring the urgency of the transition. The governmental carbon abatement costs in the residential sector range from 72 to 110 CAD/(t CO2), well below the federal carbon tax of 170 CAD/(t CO2). The coupling of both models showed, that increased residential heat pump adoption may reduce total transition cost by 8 to 10 billion CAD in the power system, but the increases in demand may be challenging to meet if additionally electric furnaces are widely adopted.

Accurate forecasts of energy demand are crucial for managing India’s rapidly growing energy needs as it continues to decarbonise its grid. In this study, we develop state-level data driven models to predict weather-driven energy demand across India using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting framework. The models use as input population-weighted meteorological variables averaged over various timescales. The models are trained on daily energy demand data, scraped from reports issued by Grid-India, which we correct for trends in population and economic growth. The models demonstrate high skill, with half having r2>0.8, significantly outperforming traditional multivariate linear regression models. We explain model behaviour through Shapley analysis and find a strong sensitivity to day of the week and public holidays, with reductions in energy demand on Sundays and varying impacts during holidays. While important variables vary by state and season, daily minimum temperature and 30 d mean temperature consistently emerge as key predictors, reflecting nighttime air conditioning use and seasonal heating or cooling needs. We also identify threshold behaviours, indicating large increases in energy demand once temperatures pass certain values. Using reanalysis, we extend our models to estimate all-India energy demand from 1979–2023, calibrated to 2023 conditions. We confirm a pronounced seasonal cycle, with greatest demand during the pre-monsoon and monsoon onset (May–June) and lowest demand in the winter (November–December). Combining these results with timeseries of renewable energy production, we find the largest energy deficit (demand minus renewable generation) occurs during or after monsoon withdrawal (September–October). Extreme deficit days, posing a risk to the national grid, are associated with early monsoon withdrawal or late monsoon breaks, leading to low wind speeds and persistently high dewpoint temperatures and cloud cover. The demand dataset created here can be used for energy grid management, siting of future renewable energy generation, and to aid with ensuring security of supply.

Electric utility rates are usually presented to consumers as reflecting costs or market efficiency. But we argue that utility rates and prices are more than they seem: they are socially constructed, formed from deeply held institutional logics. Working with 104 community shared solar (CSS) subscription contracts across 33 utility programs in Minnesota, we examine the rhetoric over cross-subsidy and ‘paying a fair share,’ showing the construction of utility costs, benefits, and values of these programs. We develop a financial model, apply archival research, and use ethnographic methods to analyze how these electricity system prices of CSS are constructed. We use a framework of embedded, short-run incremental, and long-run incremental institutional logics, demonstrating that if advocates and energy transition researchers are to take clean energy deployment, innovation, and equity seriously, they need more education, transparency, and communication around these logics and their effect on prices. We argue that with a better shared understanding of how electricity prices form, we can take responsibility for our imagined constraints and create electricity prices that can navigate the transition’s phase-in and phase-out activities toward collective, long-term benefit.

Low carbon synfuel can reduce dependence on fossil fuels like diesel and jet fuel, and, with large-scale cost-effective production, contribute to global transportation sector decarbonization, Simultaneously, nuclear power plants are struggling economically due to falling wholesale electricity prices. Converting existing nuclear plants for synfuel production could preserve these low-carbon assets and enable large-scale synfuel production, yet no comprehensive technoeconomic analysis exists. This study evaluates the potential of integrating synthetic fuel production with five US nuclear plants, considering electricity and fuel markets and carbon dioxide source access. Such integration could enhance nuclear plant profitability by up to $792 million and offer a 10% return on investment over 20 years. The hydrogen production tax credit from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act is crucial, comprising 75% of revenues on average. Carbon feedstock transportation has the highest cost at 35%, followed closely by synfuel production capital costs. Incentive policies are thus key for the decarbonization of the transportation sector and the economic importance of the geographic location of Integrated Energy Systems.

Phasing out fossil fuels is both necessary to address the climate crisis and could also create considerable social, economic, and political upheaval due to the loss of jobs and economic disruption. However, replacing jobs and revenue is only one aspect of advancing a just transition. In this paper, we argue how fossil fuels wind down is also a crucial consideration for just transition. A chaotic, unmanaged decline will make just transition impossible because of the uncertainty and instability caused. We ask: how can a just transition advance for coal regions through managed decline? We argue that a managed fossil fuel phase out is required for a just transition and the most secure way to ensure a managed phase out is through public control of fossil fuel assets. We highlight this argument through a case study of coal mining in the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming, the largest coal producing region in the US We present modeling showing the difference between a managed and unmanaged decline in the Basin to highlight the disruption of an unmanaged decline. We then present two potential pathways for public ownership for managed decline and conclude with outstanding research questions and thoughts for future research.

The energy transition from predominantly fossil- to non-fossil resources will significantly reshape land use and the built environment, and with it, people’s relationships with place. Particularly during the infrastructure-intensive ‘mid-transition’ period during which fossil and non-fossil energy systems operate simultaneously with overlapping functions, understanding how people adapt to, value, or resent living with these infrastructures can enable value-informed design and planning efforts. Here, we use conventional qualitative coding methods with machine learning validation to investigate survey responses from people in the United States of Amercica and Australia who already share space with large-scale energy production regarding their natural and social environments. We focus on (1) how individuals use measures of environmental quality to describe not just their natural or physical environment, but also their community and (2) how and whether shared natural and social spaces facilitate feelings of well-being and belonging. The goal is to inform consultation and planning for the peak infrastructure mid-transition period. We find a blended understanding of nature and culture, with respondents noting tradeoffs from hosting powerful local industry, but also the value of nature as an antidote to deteriorated or low-quality social spaces. We observe a resistance to change paired with a keen sense of loss of local control such that industry is perceived as an outside force, even when formative for local culture and landscapes. Green spaces and good quality air and water are not just measures of how well the environment is doing, but are also a benchmark people use to describe how well their community is doing. Themes are notably consistent across the communities included in this analysis, diverse in their size, resource endowment and industrial history. This work suggests attention to safeguarding and expanding the shared spaces, institutions and economies that foster strong social ties could improve community outcomes during transition.

The US has witnessed unprecedented federal investments targeted to ‘energy communities’ since 2021. Scholars, policy-makers, and activists have long sought to promote policies that ensure that energy transitions bring about just outcomes. However, emerging political frameworks for decarbonization and energy source transition frequently neglect to account for the role of incumbent actors in upholding longstanding legal, economic, and political arrangements that produce uneven distributions of benefits and burdens in energy systems. In this paper, we reflect on ongoing energy transition efforts in Central Appalachia, sharing our experiences from community-based research documenting the localized effects of carbon forestry offsets, solar energy projects, and postmine land uses, such as prisons, that are structurally linked to concentrated land ownership and capture of federal investments by legacy actors who have long dominated local and regional extraction regimes. We argue that the success or failure of broad-based transition policies depends largely on place-based dynamics rooted in land: who controls the land, who has access to land, who benefits from investments in land, and how public revenues flow from land. Empirical analysis of the politics of land from the local vantage point offers insights into how elites who have historically controlled the extractive economy continue to shape the landscape, but also opens up different worlds of possibilities that emerge at different scales.

Using a technology-rich optimization model for the Netherlands, we analyse the potential role of offshore energy options for system integration purposes. Our focus is on offshore hydrogen production produced by wind power in the Dutch Exclusive Economic Zone of the North Sea. We conclude that large-scale offshore green hydrogen development is a robust outcome of our scenarios. We also find that offshore green hydrogen production dominates over onshore hydrogen generation with green electricity delivered to shore through power lines in the North Sea. The main reason is the avoidance of elevated costs associated with a high voltage electricity grid at sea. We observe a large range of possible offshore hydrogen production levels, from 40 to 250 TWh yr⁻¹ in 2050, depending e.g. on the level of total hydrogen demand, the availability of competing emission abatement options, and the offshore wind energy potential. After 2040 it becomes optimal to transport most energy from newly installed offshore wind capacity to shore in the form of hydrogen. Because of the long lead times involved in infrastructure planning, offshore hydrogen production and transportation should be put high on political and industrial agendas.

The demand for renewable energy is becoming increasingly apparent, but a significant challenge lies in the limited availability of land. To limit environmental impacts associated with new development in previously undisturbed lands, this study investigates the potential to convert abandoned mines in Florida and Pennsylvania into solar farms, aligning with federal and state-level clean energy goals and climate objectives. Thirteen abandoned mines in Florida and five in Pennsylvania were identified as suitable sites for solar farm development. These solar installations have the potential to generate up to 22% of Florida’s and 0.017% of Pennsylvania’s annual electricity needs. Employing various criteria such as acreage, slope, aspect, proximity to infrastructure, and insolation, the research assesses the feasibility of this conversion using advanced modeling techniques. The study was conducted in two phases: first, an in-depth spatial suitability assessment utilizing GIS tools (ArcGIS Pro) to evaluate potential mine sites based on specified criteria. Second, solar power potential and carbon emission reduction are estimated based on the use of two different solar panel setups with different installed capacity and of which one is static and the other one solar-tracking. This study underscores the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing environmental and energy challenges by advancing our understanding of sustainable land use practices and contributing to the collective pursuit of clean energy objectives.

Deep decarbonization requires fundamental changes in meeting energy service demands, with some efforts increasing overall costs. Examining abatement measures in isolation, however, fails to capture their interactive effects within the energy system. Here we show the abatement costs of decarbonization in the United States using an energy system optimization model to capture technological interactions, multi-decadal path dependence, and endogenous end-use technology selection. Energy-system-wide net-zero CO2-eq emissions are achieved in 2050 at a cost under $400 per tonne CO2-eq, led by emissions reductions in power generation, end-use electrification of ground transportation, space heating, and some industrial applications. Differences in mitigation costs and CO2 geological storage potential lead to regional heterogeneities in mitigation rates and residual emissions. The marginal abatement cost curves show that additional decarbonization comes at higher incremental costs, this cost penalty decreases over time, and substantially greater abatement occurs in future time periods at the same abatement cost.

Expanding transmission capacity is likely a bottleneck that will restrict variable renewable energy (VRE) deployment required to achieve ambitious emission reduction goals. Interconnection and inter-zonal transmission buildout may be displaced by the optimal sizing of VRE to grid connection capacity and by the co-location of VRE and battery resources behind interconnection. However, neither of these capabilities is commonly captured in macro-energy system models. We develop two new functionalities to explore the substitutability of storage for transmission and the optimal capacity and siting decisions of renewable energy and battery resources through 2030 in the Western Interconnection of the United States. Our findings indicate that modeling optimized interconnection and storage co-location better captures the full value of energy storage and its ability to substitute for transmission. Optimizing interconnection capacity and co-location can reduce total grid connection and shorter-distance transmission capacity expansion on the order of 10% at storage penetration equivalent to 2.5%–10% of peak system demand. The decline in interconnection capacity corresponds with greater ratios of VRE to grid connection capacity (an average of 1.5–1.6 megawatt (MW) PV:1 MW inverter capacity, 1.2–1.3 MW wind:1 MW interconnection). Co-locating storage with VREs also results in a 9%–13% increase in wind capacity, as wind sites tend to require longer and more costly interconnection. Finally, co-located storage exhibits higher value than standalone storage in our model setup (up to ∼43%–45%). Given the coarse representation of transmission networks in our modeling, this outcome likely overstates the real-world importance of storage co-location with VREs. However, it highlights how siting storage in grid-constrained locations can maximize the value of storage and reduce transmission expansion.

The accelerating impacts of climate change call for urgent action to decarbonize our socio-technical systems based on coal and oil. Frequently, these shifts involve decisions made in distal capital cities, or distant countries, that have significant impacts on resource-based communities. Among those impacts, we focus on temporal justice: the disjuncture between the timeframes of urgent decisions about transition options to meet policy objectives and the timeframes experienced by residents of regions affected by those decisions. This article reveals how these impacts fit within trajectories of change in energy-related resource-extracting regions through six case examples in Australasia (Hunter Valley, Latrobe Valley, West Coast region of New Zealand), Canada (Alberta), and Africa (Ghana, Zimbabwe). Each setting is at a different point in the mine lifecycle (from exploration and planning of new mines, through to closure, rehabilitation and relinquishment). Included are places where residents mourn the past glory days of coal to regions where closure is imminent, to regions wary of the rush to start new mines for energy transition minerals to support increases in electrification. Collectively, the case studies illustrate the varied complexity of energy transitions and how multiple forms of justice (environmental, procedural, recognition, restorative, distributive and intergenerational) shape the key issues and required responses to transition challenges. The cases highlight the notion that a capacity for local communities to respond to these changes is impacted by embedded senses of identity, agency in the transition process, and a legacy of past activity and injustices. Because each of these factors takes time to work through, there is a disconnect between the urgency of transition due to growing global impacts and the time required for host communities to become effective participants in their own local transitions.