Low-carbon scenarios for the Brazilian power system

Abstract

The Brazilian power generation sector faces a paradigm change driven, on one hand, by a shift from a hydropower dominated mix and, on the other, by international goals for reducing greenhouse gases emissions. The objective of this work was to evaluate five scenarios for the Brazilian power system until 2050 using a multi-criteria decision analysis tool. These scenarios include a baseline trend and low carbon policy scenarios based on carbon taxes and carbon emission limits. To support the applied methodology, a questionnaire was elaborated to integrate the perceptions of experts on the scenario evaluation process. Taking into account the results from multi-criteria analysis, scenario preference followed the order of increasing share of renewables in the power system. The preferable option for the future Brazilian power system is a scenario where wind and biomass have a major contribution. The robustness of the multi-criteria tool applied in this study was tested by a sensitivity analysis. This analysis demonstrated that, regardless the respondents’ preferences and backgrounds, scenarios with higher shares of fossil fuel sources are the least preferable option, while scenarios with major contributions from wind and biomass are the preferable option to supply electricity in Brazil through 2050.