Model
The World Bank’s Electricity Planning Model (EPM) is a power system planning model that includes both capacity expansion and production cost modeling formulated in the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS). It was developed in-house by the World Bank’s power system planning team. Along with informing the CCDRs, EPM is actively used to inform the operational work of the World Bank’s staff and clients as an evolving and versatile decision-making tool.
Some CCDRs have been informed by other models. These results are not currently included in the dashboard.
Generation Sources
Each country analysis features a unique selection of available technologies. These include the existing generation sources currently in use and the committed plans for new generators scheduled to come online at the time the analysis was prepared. Additionally, the model choses from a set of candidate generation options based on the technical availability of resources such as wind and solar, and other decarbonization strategies the government wishes to explore, like gas with carbon capture and storage or hydrogen.
Inputs
The modeling is done with inputs that are both country specific and harmonized across similar analyses. Renewable resource availability, particularly solar and wind, comes from country specific sources such as master plans and national renewable plans. In the absence of these, recent reputable sources such as the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and Renewable Energy Zoning tool have been used. Historical hourly demand data, growth expectations, and characteristics of existing generators are informed by national system plans or from utility or government counterparts where available. When not available, a standard methodology is used to estimate these inputs for the analysis. Fixed and variable costs are primarily obtained from the entity responsible for power sector planning within the government or the planning department from the main public utility. When data is not available, reputable resources such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), IRENA, or National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have been used. Values for capital costs (and expected decrease in capital costs over time) and fixed and variable operating costs are based on global estimates. The inputs to the model are not available in the dashboard.
Scenarios
The scenario design applied to each country is different depending on the needs of the original analysis. Within this dashboard, the scenarios have been renamed in consistent ways to facilitate interaction with the results.
The scenarios follow the following naming conventions:
Base – The base scenario serves as a reference scenario. This scenario is a least-cost economic optimization to meet projected demand from the power sector constrained by current national policies that are deemed actionable. The spirit of this scenario is what the country is on track to do, not what the country aspires to do, and the purpose of this approach is to show the gap between what is being implemented and what is aligned with a net zero pathway. This scenario typically does not include climate impacts to the power system.
Net Zero (NZ) – The net zero scenario performs a least-cost economic generation expansion optimization under a net zero GHG emissions constraint by a target year. On top of the emission constraint, the net zero scenario also includes, if relevant, additional demand from electrification of transportation and industrial sectors. It also assumes deep decarbonization in the rest of the world, which affects the CAPEX trajectories and fossil fuel prices. Not all country analyses conducted a net zero analysis in their CCDRs, and instead opted for a Deep Decarbonized scenario (explained below).
In the dashboard, the net zero scenarios are named as NZXX, where XX refers to the target year in which the net zero emissions from the electricity sector will be achieved. For example, NZ50 refers to a scenario where net zero emissions from the electricity sector will be achieved by 2050.
Deep Decarbonization (DD) – The main difference between the net zero and deep decarbonization scenario is that instead of emissions reaching net zero, they are reduced to a certain percentage of the base emissions by a target year. This helps countries analyze different decarbonization trajectories for their power sector.
In the dashboard, the Deep Decarbonization scenarios are named as DDXX, where XX refers to the percent of emission reductions by a target year. The target year differs for countries and scenarios and is mentioned separately in the table below.
For example, DD80 will mean that the model will need to reduce emissions by 80 percent vs the base scenario. The target years for each country and scenario can differ based on the policies for the country.
Renewable Energy (RE) – This scenario also builds on the base scenario, but instead of limiting emissions, it requires the model results to meet a certain percentage of renewables in the generation mix by the target year.
These scenarios will be defined as REXX, with XX is the percentage of generation from renewables that needs to be met by the target year. The target year can vary based on country and scenario and is mentioned in the table below.
A list of scenarios is shown in the table below: