Growth dynamics of energy technologies: using historical patterns to validate low carbon scenariosCharlie Wilson LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library Abstract: Historical growth dynamics of energy technologies reveal a consistent relationship between the extent to which a technology’s installed capacity grows and the time duration of that growth. This extent – duration relationship is remarkably consistent across both supply-side and demand-side technologies, and both old and new energy technologies. Consequently, it can be used as a means of validating future scenarios of energy technology growth under carbon constraints. This validation methodology is tested on the extents and durations of growth for a range of low carbon technologies in scenarios generated by the MESSAGE energy system model which has been widely used by the IPCC. The key finding is that low carbon technology growth in the scenarios appears generally conservative relative to what has been evidenced historically. This is counterintuitive given the extremely rapid growth rates of certain low carbon technologies under tight carbon constraints. Reasons for the apparent scenario conservatism are explored. Parametric conservatism in the underlying energy system model seems the most likely explanation. JEL-codes: O33 Q40 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:37602 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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