Decarbonization of BC’s Energy System:
The Decarbonizing BC's Energy System project aims to identify technological pathways to help British Columbia meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets. The project comprises three inter-related key components: building the BC-Nexus model, building the BC-PyPSA Model, and building the Model Linking Tool. The project will provide insights into the timing and direction of investment in new technologies and the potential market opportunities within each pathway. The project will also inform decision-makers and the public about the scale and technical challenges of the energy transition required to combat climate change. The researchers of this project aim to catalyze change via energy literacy awareness that emerges from this research and will endeavor to inform public policy as a function of the key findings. Researchers will release the model on GitHub as free and open-source, as well as open data once it reaches maturity and passes validation testing.
In this endeavour we are building a production cost model of British Columbia to simulate the operation of proposed capacity investment pathways. These simulations will provide operational insights on cost inefficiencies, operational infeasibilities, and resource adequacy risks. This model will be used in the PICS funded BC Decarbonization Pathways project, it will be used for the aforementioned operational insights by soft-linking to the BC Nexus model.
The ΔE+ research team has developed the BC Nexus model to provide decision-makers in British Columbia (BC) with insight into the least-cost possible technological pathways to decarbonize our energy system. The model's nexus approach to transforming the energy system provides a more holistic understanding of synergies and trade-offs of energy-related policies and their impact on GHG reduction, land use and water resources. Tools like BC Nexus will benefit both the public and policymakers to better understand the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us. The project is recently awarded a three-year PICS Opportunity Projects Program grant. We would like to thank all solution seekers and research reviewers for their help in this project.