A video abstract for the paper is avail­able here.

The glob­al car­bon emis­sions bud­get over the next decades depends crit­i­cal­ly on the choic­es made by fast-grow­ing emerg­ing economies. Few stud­ies exist, how­ev­er, that devel­op coun­try-spe­cif­ic ener­gy sys­tem inte­gra­tion insights that can inform emerg­ing economies in this deci­sion-mak­ing process. High spa­tial- and tem­po­ral-res­o­lu­tion pow­er sys­tem plan­ning is cen­tral to eval­u­at­ing decar­boniza­tion sce­nar­ios, but obtain­ing the required data and mod­els can be cost pro­hib­i­tive, espe­cial­ly for researchers in low, low­er-mid­dle income economies. Here, we use Nicaragua as a case study to high­light the impor­tance of high-res­o­lu­tion open access data and mod­el­ing plat­forms to eval­u­ate fuel-switch­ing strate­gies and their result­ing cost of pow­er under real­is­tic tech­nol­o­gy, pol­i­cy, and cost sce­nar­ios (2014–2030). Our results sug­gest that Nicaragua could cost-effec­tive­ly achieve a low-car­bon grid (≥80%, based on non-large hydro renew­able ener­gy gen­er­a­tion) by 2030 while also pur­su­ing mul­ti­ple devel­op­ment objec­tives. Region­al coop­er­a­tion (bal­anc­ing) enables the high­est wind and solar gen­er­a­tion (18% and 3% by 2030, respec­tive­ly), at the least cost (US$127 MWh−1). Poten­tial­ly risky resources (geot­her­mal and hydropow­er) raise sys­tem costs but do not sig­nif­i­cant­ly hin­der decar­boniza­tion. Oil price sen­si­tiv­i­ty sce­nar­ios sug­gest renew­able ener­gy to be a more cost-effec­tive long-term invest­ment than fuel oil, even under the assump­tion of pre­vail­ing cheap oil prices. Nicaragua’s options illus­trate the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of pow­er sys­tem decar­boniza­tion for emerg­ing economies, and the key role that open access data and mod­el­ing plat­forms can play in help­ing devel­op low-car­bon tran­si­tion pathways.