Using MARKAL Model to Evaluate Factors Influencing Low Carbon Power Generation

There is considerable uncertainty in how U.S. power generation will evolve over the next decades. Factors anticipated to influence this evolution include the availability and cost of fossil fuel resources, the capital and operating costs of competing electric generation technologies, the level of public acceptance of nuclear power expansion, the viability and timing of large-scale carbon capture and sequestration, the ability to rapidly increase renewable capacity, the effect of research and development programs on improving technology cost-effectiveness and availability, the impact of current and future environmental regulations, and the role of climate policy on putting a price or limit on carbon dioxide emissions.

The U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is using the MARKAL energy system model to evaluate how various assumptions about these factors may affect the evolution of the U.S. energy system. MARKAL represents the principle components of the energy system, including current and projected energy supplies, energy demands, and the technologies that produce and consume energy. The model uses this information to identify cost-effective technological pathways for meeting energy demands through 2050. The relatively quick runtime of MARKAL (5 minutes for the national model and 35 minutes for the regionalized model) facilitates its use in sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. In this presentation, a nested parametric sensitivity analysis application is described, providing insight into the relative impact of various assumptions on the evolution of low carbon power generation.