North American Renewable Integration Study

Source: · NREL · | June, 2021

NREL's North American Renewable Integration Study (NARIS) informs grid planners, utilities, industry, policymakers, and other stakeholders about opportunities for a coordinated, continental low-carbon grid.

Source: NREL

The NARIS project began in 2016 and was released through a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada. NARIS used a suite of advanced modeling tools to study a range of future scenarios and gain insights, including potential impacts on costs, emissions, resource adequacy, and the specific technologies that help enable the transition to a low-carbon grid.

The analysis focused in particular on the potential role of cooperation across North America and between regions within each country, and how transmission can support sharing of supply and demand diversity across the continent. Geographically speaking, NARIS is the largest study of its kind.

This study builds on decades of previous work studying power systems with high levels of renewable generation, including the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, Eastern Renewable Generation Integration Study, Interconnections Seam Study, and Pan Canadian Wind Integration Study.

First-of-a-Kind Power System Modeling for the Entire Continent

With input from the NARIS Technical Review Committee, NREL developed and evaluated a set of four core scenarios to understand the impacts of renewable technology cost trajectories, emission constraints, and demand growth on the key outcomes. The scenarios were informed by the goals in the Mid-Century Strategies for the Paris Agreement in each country, with up to 80% carbon reductions continent-wide.