Scenario Forecast of Cross-border Electric Interconnection towards Renewables in South America

TL;DR

This paper forecasts the long-term impacts of cross-border interconnections on renewable energy utilization, economic efficiency, and energy balance in South America, highlighting significant benefits for sustainable development.

Contribution

It introduces a scenario forecast methodology to evaluate the effects of cross-border interconnections towards renewables in South America, providing comparative analysis with business-as-usual scenarios.

Findings

Renewable resource utilization can be significantly increased.

Energy matrix can be optimized and balanced.

Generation costs can be greatly reduced.

Abstract

Cross-border Electric Interconnection towards renewables is a promising solution for electric sector under the UN 2030 sustainable development goals which is widely promoted in emerging economies. This paper comprehensively investigates state of art in renewable resources and cross-border electric interconnection in South America. Based on the raw data collected from typical countries, a long-term scenario forecast methodology is applied to estimate key indicators of electric sector in target years, comparing the prospects of active promoting cross-border Interconnections Towards Renewables (ITR) scenario with Business as Usual (BAU) scenario in South America region. Key indicators including peak load, installed capacity, investment, and generation cost are forecasted and comparative analyzed by year 2035 and 2050. The comparative data analysis shows that by promoting cross-border interconnection towards renewables in South America, renewable resources can be highly utilized for energy supply, energy matrix can be optimized balanced, economics can be obviously driven and generation cost can be greatly reduced.