Grantee Research Project Results
2008 Progress Report: Methodology for Assessing the Effects of Technological and Economic Changes on the Location, Timing and Ambient Air Quality Impacts of Power Sector Emissions
EPA Grant Number: R831836Title: Methodology for Assessing the Effects of Technological and Economic Changes on the Location, Timing and Ambient Air Quality Impacts of Power Sector Emissions
Investigators: Ellis, Joseph H. , Burtraw, Dallas , Hobbs, Benjamin F. , Palmer, Karen
Institution: The Johns Hopkins University , Resources for the Future
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: February 1, 2005 through January 30, 2008 (Extended to January 30, 2009)
Project Period Covered by this Report: February 1, 2008 through January 31,2009
Project Amount: $648,733
RFA: Regional Development, Population Trend, and Technology Change Impacts on Future Air Pollution Emissions (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Climate Change , Air
Objective:
The amounts, locations and timing of power sector emissions are sensitive to economic and technological assumptions. In order to more confidently estimate future temporal and spatial scenarios of emissions, a theoretically defensible, transparent and practical methodology is potentially helpful. A methodology is being developed through the use of a sequence of models representing market-driven electricity supply and facility location. The primary activities under the energy facility-siting task have included improving the empirical siting analyses using an expanded dataset and performing capacity siting and NOx emissions analyses. The Haiku model, developed by Resources for the Future, is used to provide regional technology, demand, and emissions totals and disaggregates national totals to regions. We use it to systematically explore the sensitivity of both emissions and ambient air quality results to these uncertain drivers in order to assess which assumptions and model components matter most. Ambient air quality (tropospheric ozone and particulates) for an example set of scenarios are simulated using MM5/MCIP/SMOKE/CMAQ. This will demonstrate the practicality of integrating the source disaggregation methodology with the SMOKE emissions processing system and subsequently, the CMAQ transport and fate model itself.
Progress Summary:
Electricity Supply and Demand: In the last year of the project we completed the characterization of Haiku model’s electricity demand including new econometric estimates that enable us to take advantage of information about regional differences and some demographic differences in demand. The important contribution is that this formulation allows for a forecast of how demand changes, by region, in response to a changing climate. In related work a supplementary model was developed that allowed for partitioning of demand across time blocks in a manner that enabled time-block specific responses to changes in prices. This framework enables the characterization of options for improved end-use efficiency with attention to time of day pricing. This is valuable for the examination of environmental policies that may impose time-specific changes in electricity prices. In addition the supply side of the model was updated to incorporate cost projections for fossil, nuclear and renewable technologies including geothermal, wind and biomass.
Emission Downscaling Models: Siting and Dispatch: The downscaling models translate aggregate emissions projections from the national/regional Haiku model into a scale compatible with the needs of air quality simulation models. The downscaling involves a suite of models that account for historical siting patterns, water, transmission fuel and spatial factors, siting probabilities, etc. In the last year the suite of downscaling models was made fully operational and was successfully integrated with the upstream Haiku electricity model and the downstream atmospheric model.
Air Quality Modeling: Meteorologic, emissions and air quality modeling activities for 2008 consisted of making operational and testing the air quality modeling system with new domains and emissions inventories, gridded surrogates and an updated chemical mechanism. Details follow:
- US36km_148X112 (national domain – nested in a 108km MM5 domain)
- US12km_160X120 (a nested subdomain covering the PJM electric grid)
- US4km_172X120 (a nested subdomain focused on MD, VA, PA)
- Different MM5 vertical resolutions: 15 and 34 layers
- Different MCIP vertical resolutions: 12, 13, 15 and 17 layers
- FDDA vs no FDDA
- NEI01 emissions inventory
- EPA "new" gridded surrogates
- a set of simple routines to window the new surrogates to conform to user-specified subdomains
- generation of new BELD3 inputs for user-specified subdomains (using beld3smk, a component of the spatial allocator)
- cb05_ae4_aq chemical mechanism
- ping and noping selections in SMOKE V2.4 and CMAQ4.6
- different elevated source selection criteria
As of December 31, 2008, there existed one operational integrated emissions scenario (“new baseline”). A second integrated emissions scenario (ACC) involving an assumption of accelerated temperature increase was created, but was not yet operational Both scenarios represent supply and demand conditions for the electric power sector in 2030. In the baseline scenario, Haiku was run with demand functions based on cooling- and heating-degree days representative of 1990s conditions for all years (i.e., every 5th year from the first year through the last, which is 2030). The demand functions include CDD, HDD, price, and previous periods' quantity demand (lagged demand) as arguments.
In the ACC scenario, Haiku was instead run with demand functions with higher CDDs and lower HDDs as inputs (based on the temperature scenarios). The CDDs and HDDs were linearly interpolated between the 1990s scenario and the 2050s scenario (assumed to occur in 2030, hence "ACC"elerated run). The power system is therefore experiencing a gradually warmer climate, warming at a faster rate than GISS anticipates. Both cases impose NOx and SO2 caps (consistent with CAIR). Thus, total summer emissions do not change -- only their spatial and temporal distribution. Haiku's scenarios for 6 Haiku regions have been downscaled (NJ/DE; PA; MD; OH; KY/IN; MI) ultimately siting new plants by county and distributing emissions to hours.
Future Activities:
In the final phase of this project ongoing analyses will be finalized and manuscripts prepared for submission to journals. At least two additional papers are expected.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 16 publications | 9 publications in selected types | All 7 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Chen Y, Hobbs BF, Leyffer S, Munson TS. Leader-follower equilibria for electric power and NOx allowances markets. Computational Management Science 2006;3(4):307-330. |
R831836 (2005) R831836 (2007) R831836 (2008) R831836 (Final) R828731 (2003) R828731 (Final) |
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Hobbs BF, Hu M-C, Chen Y, Ellis JH, Paul A, Burtraw D, Palmer KL. From regions to stacks: spatial and temporal downscaling of power pollution scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 2010;25(2):1179-1189. |
R831836 (2008) R831836 (Final) R828731 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
power sector emissions, electrical energy production and demand, ambient air quality, climate change, regional facility location, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Air, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, Atmosphere, air quality modeling, atmospheric carbon dioxide, ecosystem models, electrical energy, climatic influence, emissions impact, green house gas concentrations, modeling, carbon dioxide, climate models, CO2 concentrations, demographics, electric power sector emissions, ambient air pollution, atmospheric models, Global Climate ChangeProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.