Greenhouse gas emission reduction by means of fuel switching in electricity generation: Addressing the potentials

Many countries committed themselves in the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Some of these targeted emission reductions could result from a switch from coal-fired to gas-fired electricity generation. The focus in this work lies on Western Europe, with the presence of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). e switching to occur, several conditions have to be fulfilled. First, an economical incentive must be present, i.e. a sufficiently high European Union Allowance (EUA) price together with a sufficiently low natural gas price. Second, the physical potential for switching must exist, i.e. at a given load, there must remain enough power plants not running to make switching possible. aper investigates what possibilities exist for switching coal-fired plants for gas-fired plants, dependent on the load level (the latter condition above). A fixed allowance cost and a variable natural gas price are assumed. thod to address GHG emission reduction potentials is first illustrated in a methodological case. Next, the GHG emission reduction potentials are addressed for several Western European countries together with a relative positioning of their electricity generation. GHG emission reduction potentials are also compared with simulation results. ission reduction potentials tend to be significant. The Netherlands have a very widespread switching zone, so GHG emission reduction is practically independent of electricity generation. Other counties, like Germany, Spain and Italy could reduce GHG emissions significantly by switching. n allowance cost following the switch level of a 50% efficient gas-fired plant and a 40% efficient coal-fired plant in the summer season (like in 2005), the global GHG emission reduction (in the electricity generating sector) for the eight modeled zones could amount to 19%.