DECO2 An Open-source Energy System Decarbonisation Planning Software Including Negative Emissions Technologies

TL;DR

DECO2 is an open-source software tool for energy system decarbonisation planning that uniquely integrates negative emissions technologies and CCS at the plant level, aiding optimal technology deployment for climate targets.

Contribution

This work introduces DECO2, a novel open-source energy planning software that incorporates CCS and NETs at the plant scale for the first time in a bottom-up model.

Findings

Fuel substitution can significantly reduce emissions in existing power plants.

Deployment of NETs is crucial once mature for cost-effective CO2 removal.

The software effectively guides optimal mitigation technology deployment over multiple periods.

Abstract

The deployment of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) and negative emissions technologies (NETs) are crucial to meet the net-zero target by year 2050, as emphasised by the Glasgow Climate Pact. Over the years, several energy planning models have been developed to address the temporal aspects of carbon management. However, limited works have incorporated CCS and NETs for bottom-up energy planning at the individual plant scale, which is considered in this work. The novel formulation is implemented in an open-source energy system software that has been developed in this work for optimal decarbonisation planning. The DECarbonation Options Optimisation (DECO2) software considers multiperiod energy planning with a superstructural model and was developed in Python with an integrated user interface in Microsoft Excel. The software application is demonstrated with two scenarios that differ in terms of the availabilities of mitigation technologies. Results demonstrated the potential of fuel substitutions for low-carbon alternatives in existing coal and natural gas power plants. Additionally, once NETs are mature and are available for commercial deployment, their deployment is crucial in aiding CO2 removal in minimal investment costs scenarios. Overall, the newly developed open-source software demonstrates the importance of determining the optimal deployment of mitigation technologies in meeting climate change targets for each period.