Strategies for development of green energy systems in Mongolia

Mongolia is playing an increasing role in providing energy, largely in the form of coal, and, to a lesser extent, crude oil, principally to China, and this role may expand in the future to Korea and Japan, as more of the country’s significant coal and renewable energy resources are harnessed.

How Mongolia chooses to develop these resources may have impacts not only on the country’s own economy and environment, but also on global climate change. This report, an output of a project by SEI and the Global Green Growth Institute, explores different scenarios of evolution of the country’s energy supply and demand, including in industry, transport, buildings, and agriculture sectors.

This study employs a bottom-up techno-economic analysis of energy and GHG-reduction scenarios, which are assembled in the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) software developed by SEI. Four broad scenarios of how energy supply and demand could evolve in Mongolia through the year 2035 were considered; all using the same economic and demographic growth forecasts, which draw from recent studies and assume rapid growth of Mongolia’s economy, especially in mining and industrial sectors, with related effects like increasing demand for freight and personal transportation.

The scenarios include a reference case, with a continuation of largely coal-based energy supply in an economy driven largely by mining exports; a recent plans scenario that begins to introduce a shift to renewable energy and increased energy efficiency based on recent government plans and priorities; an expanded green energy scenario where Mongolia makes an even stronger transition to renewable energy and implements extensive energy efficiency measures; and a shifts in energy export scenario that builds from the expanded green energy scenario and also assumes a shift in the country’s exports, away from coal and towards renewable power.

Download the report (PDF, 2.3MB)