Abstract
Portugal still relies heavily in fossil fuels. As an example, during the year of 2005, about 84% of the national primary energy demand was supplied by imported oil, coal and natural gas. Also, the predictions for CO2 emissions to the year of 2010 will be 45% above the defined limit. Applying TIMES model tool, this paper examines different scenarios regarding the price levels of CO2 taxes and trading under the Emissions Trading System in Europe and consider the perspectives of using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to mitigate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the scenario where the emissions licenses for CO2 credits are obtained for a price of 20 (sic)/tonne of CO2 emitted, the natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant will be the main thermal power plants in next three decades. After that period, the installed capacity of coal power plants will increase significantly from 2040 on and NGCC will almost vanish. In the scenarios where CCS was an option, the most significant conclusion is that above 50<(sic)/tonne of CO2 emitted are the CCS technologies economically feasible, maintaining the predictions for electricity demand that show a slowly decrease after the year 2020. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.