Environmental assessment of energy scenarios for a low-carbon electrical network in Chile

Abstract

Nowadays, establishing clean energy sources is an undeniable need for all territories to reconcile energy and competitiveness objectives with those of security and sustainability. This article shows the main advantages of implementing clean energy sources in the long-term Chilean electrical network. The clean energy considered in this work is based on Renewable Energy (Conventional and Non-Conventional) with the backup of gas or nuclear. Thus, four scenarios are proposed and were simulated for the year 2050, the year assumed for the decommissioning of all coal plants in the country. These scenarios contemplate a high or low penetration of Renewable Energy. Additionally, a reference and realistic scenario for the year 2018 has also been considered to compare to the clean scenarios proposed. The results obtained coincide with the goals of reducing environmental impacts such as global warming emissions and fossil fuel dependence. However, the backup that was chosen for supporting the intermittence of renewable energy may have an important role in the main system considering the expected growth of energy demands in the near future.