It’s now known that most parts of the world are doing their contribution to reach the same goal: a future that’s better for our planet.  

Hence, we’ve seen efforts to reduce greenhouse gas, an increase in eco-friendly jobs and investment opportunities, as well as the rise of decarbonizing electricity.  

Of course, when we look at the environmental benefits it entails, lower carbon electricity production looks great. Unfortunately for now, it could also lead to a negative impact on some regions (and positive on others), depending on their vulnerabilities and their capacity to adapt.  

That’s what new research by a team at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) suggests, which has been published in Nature Communications. 

The team has mapped the socio-economic consequences of electricity decarbonization for 296 regions in Europe by 2050. According to their calculations, the mapping shows that the southern and south-eastern regions of the continent could be the most vulnerable. 

In Europe, electricity consumption depends on the highly polluting fossil fuel power plants like coal and gas. The research claims that this sector alone is responsible for a quarter of the continent’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

Due to that reason, some countries have begun prioritizing electricity decarbonization. In addition, it’s also a prerequisite for the decarbonization of other sectors that need to be electrified, such as heating and transport. 

The research says that the benefits of such energy transition are obvious, as mentioned earlier. Nonetheless, the process results in different outcomes, such as maintaining or leading some new inequalities between regions. 

For instance, an area with a coal-fired power plant will lose many jobs and tax revenues if the plant closes, which is a problem in itself. Matters can get worse if, in that region, there is little land available to build new renewable energy plants.  

 

 

Calculating different scenarios 

While there’s more data on the benefits of low-carbon electricity production, data on the regional consequences of decarbonized electricity are still lacking. Therefore, the research team analyzed the socio-economic impacts of 248 electricity transition scenarios on 296 regions in Europe. 

These regions correspond to the NUTS 2 level of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) defined by the EU. It is the categorization of the European Economic Area into areas of 800,000 to 3 million inhabitants. 

First author Jan-Philipp Sasse said, “”To simulate the different scenarios, we took into account all existing means of electricity production for each region, such as nuclear, hydro, photovoltaic, wind and fossil fuels, as well as electricity transmission and storage. We studied their possible configurations in 2035 to be on the way to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050” 

Then, the team select vulnerability criteria for each region, such as air pollution, the price of electricity, the nature of employment, the amount of land available or the new investments that this transition could or could not generate. 

The researchers took account of the amount of electricity consumed, produced, imported and exported locally every 6 hours for a year. After retrieving the data, they processed it through a high-performance computer cluster and made calculations to model the different scenarios and their impact. 

The disparity between the north and the south 

Co-author and associate professor at the UNIGE’s Faculty of Science Evelina Trutnevyte said, “Our results show that the benefits of a transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 would be tangible already by 2035.  

“In terms of air quality, investment and job creation, these benefits tend to be concentrated in the richer regions of northern Europe. Those in southern and south-eastern Europe are generally more vulnerable.” 

The researchers made North Jutland in Denmark and Sicily and Campania as an example. They suggest that the former region would benefit from additional investment—and thus jobs—related to offshore wind installations. 

On the other hand, the latter two would experience an increase in electricity prices. Their geographical location would make these two Italian regions unable to import electricity freely and flexibly from other European regions, where it is cheaper. 

“In Switzerland, the impact of this transition would be almost neutral because the country has no fossil fuel power plants to close and the other vulnerabilities and benefits are balanced,” Trutnevyte said. 

Now, this isn’t the first research to highlight the inequality of energy. In fact, low-carbon or eco-friendly energy aside, not all people get to enjoy regular, conventional energy.   

 

 

Energy equality issues 

In 2020, University of Leeds researchers published their study in Nature Energy. They examined energy inequality for income classes across 86 countries, from highly industrialized to developing ones. It was revealed that there was extreme disparity in energy footprints in many places. 

The study showed that energy footprints grow with expenditure, and consequentially, not distributed equally. According to the researchers, among the countries and income classes in the study, the top 10% consume roughly 20 times more energy than the bottom 10%. 

And when there’s an increase in income, people spend more of their money on energy-intensive goods, such as package holidays or cars, leading to high energy inequality. The study found that 187 times more vehicle fuel energy is used by the top 10% consumers relative to the bottom 10%. 

On the other hand, residential energy, such as those used in cooking and heating, and electricity are much more equitably distributed, with the top 10% of consumers consuming roughly one third of the total. 

Lead author Yannick Oswald, PhD researcher in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, said that the team found no energy categories which are free from energy inequality or benefit populations to an equal degree. 

“Transport-related consumption categories are among the least equal,” Oswald added. 

The researchers added that the poorest 20% of the UK’s population still consumes more than five times as much energy per person as the bottom 84% in India, a group numbering roughly a billion people. 

Without reductions and interventions, by 2050 energy footprints could double from what they were in 2011, even if energy efficiency improves, the study warned. 

Needing to address the issue 

According to the University of Leeds study, this energy inequality is preventable through appropriate intervention. For example, energy footprint of heating and electricity can be reduced by massive-scale public investment programs in housing retrofit. 

Co-author of this study Julia Steinberger said, “There needs to be serious consideration to how to change the vastly unequal distribution of global energy consumption to cope with the dilemma of providing a decent life for everyone while protecting climate and ecosystems.” 

This research doesn’t state if green or low-carbon energy can be used as an intervention in the energy inequality. However, we know from the UNIGE study that even the “better” type of energy may not be the sole answer to this problem. 

Nevertheless, based on the different scenarios, the UNIGE scientists have created some sort of a guide for future researchers and policy makers to map areas with benefits and vulnerability. 

Furthermore, more can use and integrate the data into energy transition strategies in the electricity sector. So, in the near future, fair and equitable energy transition which includes measures to compensate for regional inequalities may happen. 

 

Sources

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-05-inequalities-low-carbon-electricity.html   

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200316141505.htm