Regional Power Planning Robust to Multiple Models: Meeting Mexico's 2050 Climate Goals

Abstract

As countries set climate goals, they face questions on how these goals can be reached. Important studies have used a top-down approach, employing and comparing multiple Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to identify possible development pathways. These studies, however, are at very coarse time-steps; and do not include information on the geographic distribution of resources or infrastructure. Moreover, the multi-model approach, while useful, leaves questions as to how policy-makers and planners can use the divergent results. Using Mexico as a case study, we employ a bottom-up model of the electric power system to identify critical geographic areas of investment for installed capacity and transmission that are robust across a set of IAM-derived climate mitigation pathways. We find that, despite a lack of robustness in the location of installed capacity investments, investment in transmission expansion is fairly robust across pathways, as it is driven largely by the location of load rather than of generation.