Multi-Regional Long-Term Electricity Supply Scenarios with Fusion

This paper examines the global potential for deployment of fusion power through elaboration of multi-regional long-term electricity market scenarios for the time horizon 2100. The probabilistic simulation dynamic programming model PLANELEC-Pro was applied in order to determine the expansion plans of the power generation systems in different world regions that adequately meet the projected electricity demand at minimum cost given the quality-of-service and CO₂ emissions constraints. It was found that the deployment of total 330-950 GWe of fusion power world-wide could allow for reducing 1.8-4.3 % of global CO₂ emissions from electricity generation, while entailing a slight increase of levelized system electricity cost (by approx. 0.1-0.4 [euro]_cents/kWh). By the end of century, the estimated share of fusion in regional electricity mixes varies from 1.5 to 23% depending on the region. It is concluded that economic analysis of fusion technology should be complemented with the evaluation of the whole fusion RTD program in terms of social rate of return taking into account its external "spillover" benefits.