STUDY RESULTS
3
Both the High Clean Fuels and High Carbon Sequestration scenarios assume a significant portion of the customer base (~65-70% by 2045) retain access to both the fuels and the electric delivery system in similar ways that they do today. In these scenarios, however, most appliances remain only supported by one system or the other – for example, space heating in a particular residence is either electrified with no fuel cell or fuels system back up or remains connected to the fuels system with no electric system back-up. Customers, though connected to both the electric and fuels system, are empowered with the options to choose to install on-site back-up equipment (e.g., a back-up fuel cell) that could support all appliances in the case of an outage event. On the other end of the spectrum lies the No Fuels Network scenario, in which all customers would have to rely solely on electric power, without any network delivery of fuels. If there was an issue with the electric system in this scenario – either in generation, transmission, or distribution -- all enduses without distributed generation and/or undergrounding of electric conduit (at a significant cost) would be without energy. This is considered to be the least resilient system, with considerably less resiliency than today’s system. The model includes the specific investment costs associated with delivering enhanced levels of resiliency in line with each scenario. For example, all three of the most plausible scenarios assume varying levels of fuel cell investment to vulnerable risk zones such as wildfire risk zones. However, this effort did not look at all costs associated with achieving resiliency which could include significant cost items such as undergrounding electric conduit. Enhancing resiliency requires significant investment to deploy known and proven resiliency options, along with the need to chart the path to carbon neutrality in the long term. In all three of the most plausible scenarios based on the selected key criteria, the fuels network could be leveraged to enable important resiliency measures.
3.2 Achieving full decarbonization including in hard-to-abate sectors Achieving full carbon neutrality will require solutions to decarbonize traditionally hard-to-abate sectors. Industry and heavy-duty transportation account for approximately 33% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions (Exhibit 1.1).65 Across all scenarios evaluated, these hard-to-abate sectors require clean fuels – whether through biogas, hydrogen, or traditional gas offset by CCUS -- to most affordably achieve decarbonization. Industry The industrial sector accounts for approximately 21% of California’s current emissions,66 with carbonemitting fuels used for both heating needs and as chemical feedstocks.
65California Air Resources Board, “California Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2000 to 2019: Trends of Emissions and Other Indicators,” p. 18, July 28, 2021, available at: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2019/ghg_inventory_trends_00-19.pdf. 66Ibid.
36
