TransitionZero

This month's staff spotlight is Adam Mould, Principal Frontend Engineer at TransitionZero, and he's teasing what's coming next to Scenario Builder. Swipe through to hear about the rebuild he led this year, why he joined a climate tech company, and the features currently in the pipeline - including one of the most requested we've ever had from users. 🚀 He also wrote about the redesign in detail here: https://lnkd.in/eWNwt7ta Want to learn more about the people behind TransitionZero? https://lnkd.in/eR-JhtZU

Adding a technology to a capacity expansion or production cost model usually means editing model files before you can run anything. Scenario Builder now lets you do it with a click of a button. 🔍 Find out what a technology is worth by removing it: Turn it off, rerun the model, see what steps in and at what cost. Now you can put a number on what storage, gas, or interconnection is really contributing, instead of just asserting it. 🎯 Match the candidate list in the plan you're testing: National plans work from a fixed set of technologies. Restrict your scenario to that same set, and your run is directly comparable to the official one, since you're both choosing from the same list. 🤝 Represent different positions as separate scenarios: Stakeholders often disagree on what belongs in the mix. Build one scenario per view and compare them side by side. It's easier to agree on an answer than on the inputs. It's live in your workspace now if you're already a Scenario Builder user, and a good reason to open it for the first time if you're not. Try it here: https://lnkd.in/dhT96dU5

🇮🇳 India's steel capacity is growing fast - and it's still coal-led. So where can the sector actually make near-term progress on emissions? Our new modelling points to two levers, on the routes where change is tractable today. Join us on Wednesday 2nd September for 'Green steel, hour by hour: decarbonising India's steel', where we'll present new TransitionZero research on near-term levers for India's electric and gas-based steelmaking routes: 24/7 carbon-free electricity (CFE) and green hydrogen blending. Our modelling shows that combining hourly-matched clean electricity with green hydrogen blending could add as little as 3% to production costs, while cutting emissions, reducing curtailment, and easing exposure to carbon border tariffs like the EU's CBAM. A panel of experts will respond to the findings and discuss the policy and market conditions needed to realise this opportunity for Indian steel: - Balasubramanian Viswanathan, Energy Officer, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) - Deepak Yadav, Senior Programme Lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) - Ankur Malyan, Manager, RMI - Irfan Mohamed, Senior Energy Systems Modeller, TransitionZero - Moderated by Verity Crane, Heavy Industry Lead, TransitionZero 🗓️ Wednesday 2nd September 🕙 10:00 BST / 14:30 IST Register here: https://lnkd.in/e6WGpQN3

What happens to Pakistan's power system if a named plant retires earlier than planned? Or later? Or is replaced by something else entirely? These are the questions national expansion plans have to answer, and they are now questions anyone can test for themselves. Last week we launched asset-level modelling in Scenario Builder, starting with Pakistan. It lets planners, analysts and other stakeholders reproduce the plant-level decisions in Pakistan's Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP), examine the assumptions behind them, and model alternative pathways. 💡 No code or modelling experience required. The model is open to explore in Scenario Builder now. 🌍 We are also looking for the next markets to apply this to. If decisions about individual assets matter in your power system, tell us about your use case at info@transitionzero.org. ▶️ Watch the video below, featuring a walkthrough from our Head of Product Thomas Kouroughli, to see the model in action, or start exploring in Scenario Builder today: https://lnkd.in/dhT96dU5

⚡ Japan can reach net zero more cheaply with mature renewables than unproven innovative thermal. Japan's current roadmap expects abated thermal technologies to supply 30 to 40% of generation by 2050. But neither hydrogen nor ammonia mono-firing has been demonstrated at a commercial scale, and no CCS project has consistently captured above 80% of emissions at the point of combustion. New modelling by TransitionZero and ClientEarth finds: 👉 A renewable-led pathway reaches net zero at 7% (US$119bn) lower total cumulative system costs than the current roadmap 👉 If abated thermal fails to scale, Japan risks 25% more cumulative emissions and would miss its net-zero target 👉 The renewable-led path more than halves LNG import exposure in 2050, offering insulation from price shocks like 2022 👉 But it demands a step change in deployment: around 48% more renewables, 66% more storage, and 49% more interconnection relative to the thermal-heavy pathway The full report is available to download via the blog, and you can test alternative pathways yourself in Scenario Builder, our free, no-code modelling platform. 🔗 Read the blog: https://lnkd.in/eP5gJhNc #EnergyTransition #CleanEnergy #PowerSystems

⚡Japan has budgeted 15 trillion yen (US$94bn) to support hydrogen and ammonia supply chains across the whole economy, targeting a combined production of 20 million tonnes by 2050. But is burning hydrogen and ammonia in power plants a cost-effective way to decarbonise the power sector? Our new analysis suggests these fuels are an expensive route to cutting power sector emissions, and that Japan's renewable potential may deliver more, sooner. Key findings: 👉 By 2050, electricity from plants running fully on hydrogen or ammonia could cost $193 to $696/MWh, compared with $66 to $124/MWh for renewables with battery storage 👉 At 2030 blending shares (10% hydrogen with gas, 20% ammonia with coal), emissions savings are minimal once supply chain emissions are counted 👉 The 3 trillion yen allocated for contracts for difference, out of the 15 trillion yen budget would leave a significant price gap against the 20 million tonne production target, with much of the cost likely passed on to consumers 👉 Delivered hydrogen costs sit above METI's target prices across most pathways we assessed The blog includes our full report and a levelised cost tool you can download and adapt to explore different production pathways and geographies. Read the full blog: https://lnkd.in/eUZE2d8Q ClientEarth #EnergyTransition #CleanEnergy #Decarbonisation

☀️ Where is solar actually being built? The Q2 2026 release of TZ-SAM, our Solar Asset Mapper, is now live, featuring 109,902 detected facilities across 194 countries and territories, totalling 1,383 GW. The headline this quarter is a slowdown. Detected capacity additions in China more than halved, from 38 GW last quarter to 16 GW this quarter, as the market adjusts to last year's pricing reform. Satellite data now independently corroborates what official figures have been showing on the ground. But growth has not stopped, it has moved. The Philippines had the fastest detected growth out of Asia's ten largest solar markets, up 17.5%, helped by construction at MTerra Solar, set to become the world's largest single site solar and battery facility. 🔗 Read the full analysis and explore the data: https://lnkd.in/eydEWTu4

⚡ Power system plans often come down to decisions about individual plants: which to build, which to retire, and which to replace. Until now, most open modelling tools could only explore those choices at the level of aggregated technology fleets. 🇵🇰 Scenario Builder can now model individual power sector assets, starting with Pakistan. Pakistan's Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) names specific plants for addition, retirement and replacement. With our asset-level Pakistan model, planners and other stakeholders can independently reproduce those plant-level decisions, test the assumptions behind them, and explore alternative pathways for themselves. No code, no black box. We developed this capability in response to a planning need identified by Renewables First and our partners in Pakistan. It can now be extended to other markets where decisions about individual assets matter, and we are looking for real planning use cases to guide where we apply it next. Tell us about yours at info@transitionzero.org. 👉 Try it today: https://lnkd.in/dhT96dU5

A new Scenario Builder interface, South Africa on the platform, and new modelling on Indonesian solar and Indian green steel. July's issue of The Source is out now. Read and subscribe below. 👇 #EnergyTransition #EnergyModelling #OpenData