Semafor Net Zero: One Good Text
After winning a $20 billion contract with Google, Intersect Power wants to “create a whole new class of real estate.”
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External Publications with Kong Chyong • November 08, 2023
Britain has been a global leader in reducing emissions, but little progress has been made on heat, which accounts for almost one-third of UK emissions and the largest single share is domestic heat, which is responsible for 17% of the national total.
Britain has been a global leader in reducing emissions, but little progress has been made on heat, which accounts for almost one-third of UK emissions and the largest single share is domestic heat, which is responsible for 17% of the national total. Given the UK’s 2050 “Net-Zero” commitment, decarbonizing heat is becoming urgent and currently one of the main pathways involves its electrification. Here, we present a spatially explicit optimization model that investigates the implications of electrifying domestic heat on the operation of the power sector. Using hourly historical gas demand data, we conclude that the domestic peak heat demand is almost 50% lower than widely cited values. A 100% electrification pathway can be achieved with only a 1.3-fold increase in generation capacity compared to a power-only decarbonization scenario, but only by leveraging the role of thermal energy storage technologies without which a further 40% increase would be needed.
AI’s growing power demand has received enormous attention in recent months. In many places, the lack of power supplies is an important constraint on the growth of data centers to train and run AI models.
Kenya and South Africa have recently started moving toward an open access regime in their electricity sectors, while the US and India have been on this path for over two decades.
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External Publications with Kong Chyong • November 08, 2023