With the increased focus on responding to climate change by accelerating a transition to a low-carbon energy system, differing views remain on the combination of energy technologies that will best achieve this goal. Identifying technological pathways is complicated by wide uncertainties in economic and technological factors. Analyses that neglect these uncertainties can produce pathways for a low-carbon energy future that are highly granular and specific, but which are based on a particular assumption about future conditions and imply a need to make specific technology commitments over a long period of time. We frame the energy transition problem as the identification of one near-term investment strategy that is flexible across a wide range of possible future costs, followed by many alternative subsequent investment plans, each of which responds to realized future costs to achieve an aggressive emissions reduction target. Using an example of planning a low-carbon power system under uncertainty, we demonstrate the option value of not ruling out some energy technologies in the near term.

中文翻译：

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向低碳电力过渡：投资组合、灵活性和期权价值

随着人们越来越关注通过加速向低碳能源系统过渡来应对气候变化，对于最能实现这一目标的能源技术组合仍有不同的看法。由于经济和技术因素的广泛不确定性，识别技术路径变得复杂。忽略这些不确定性的分析可以为低碳能源未来提供高度细化和具体的路径，但这些路径基于对未来条件的特定假设，并意味着需要在很长一段时间内做出具体的技术承诺。我们将能源转型问题定义为一种近期投资策略的识别，该策略可以灵活地应对各种可能的未来成本，然后是许多替代的后续投资计划，每一项都响应已实现的未来成本，以实现积极的减排目标。以在不确定性下规划低碳电力系统为例，我们展示了短期内不排除某些能源技术的选择价值。