Valuing emissions from electricity towards a low carbon economy

Renewable and high efficiency generation technologies are increasingly being integrated into the power system to mitigate environmental damage. The introduction of these new technologies has commercial and technical challenges. Compared with conventional generation, these technologies are considered to be expensive and require subsidies. Current electricity markets do not put a significantly strong value on environmental emissions to attract sufficient investment in renewable and high efficiency generation technologies. This paper proposes a methodology for determining the value of emissions from electricity generation so as to provide a level playing field for conventional and new generation technologies alike. Studies were carried out with three generation technologies - pulverized coal, natural gas combined cycle and wind power plants with a total of ten generators. Network constraints were simulated using the IEEE 30 bus test system. The results indicate that it is possible to attract investment in cleaner generation technologies based on emission cost values.