Energy transition planning in developing countries: The case of Bolivian interconnected power system

The transition to a more environmentally friendly energy matrix has become one of the most important goals to control the climate change. Variable renewable energy sources (VRES) are a central low-carbon alternative but their variability and lower predictability require a flexible power system capable of balancing the variations. The aim of this paper is to determine a possible transition pathway to reach high penetrations of non-conventional renewable sources for Bolivia. To that aim, a Bolivian long-term scenario (2050 horizon) is developed based on the international targets, with the purpose to distribute economic resources optimally in the next 30 years. This is achieved by combining a unitcommitment and dispatch model with the forecast demand for the upcoming years, the already-known power system plan for the Bolivian system (5 years), and various scenarios of VRES deployment. For each scenario, the flexibility of the power generation system is evaluated in terms of energy balancing, transmission grid, system inertia, ancillary services requirement, and energy generation cost. Results indicate a need to add 8.31 GW of transmission lines, increase storage capacity, and enhanced ancillary services up to 73.31TWh (in particular frequency containment reserve) in the next 30 years. Finally, the environmental and economic gains are evaluated with comparison to the baseline it is found that the proposed system can reduce 62% of the CO2 emissions by 2050 with high penetration of VRES. This will result into significant economic savings for the country by enhancing natural gas exportations.