energies Article Monetising Air Pollution Benefits of Clean Energy Requires Locally Specific Information Mandana Mazaheri 1 , Yvonne Scorgie 1 , Richard A. Broome 2 , Geoffrey G. Morgan 3 , Bin Jalaludin 4 and Matthew L. Riley 1, *   Citation: Mazaheri, M.; Scorgie, Y.; Broome, R.A.; Morgan, G.G.; Jalaludin, B.; Riley, M.L. Monetising Air Pollution Benefits of Clean Energy Requires Locally Specific Information. Energies 2021, 14, 7622. https:// doi.org/10.3390/en14227622 Academic Editor: Frede Blaabjerg Received: 22 October 2021 Accepted: 11 November 2021 Published: 15 November 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Parramatta 2124, Australia; Mandana.Mazaheri@planning.nsw.gov.au (M.M.); yvonne.scorgie@environment.nsw.gov.au (Y.S.) 2 New South Wales Ministry of Health, Health Protection NSW, Sydney 2060, Australia; Richard.Broome@health.nsw.gov.au 3 University Centre for Rural Health, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Lismore 2480, Australia; geoffrey.morgan@sydney.edu.au 4 School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2006, Australia; b.jalaludin@unsw.edu.au * Correspondence:matthew.riley@environment.nsw.gov.au Abstract: Meeting the Paris Agreement on climate change requires substantial investments in low- emissions energy and significant improvements in end-use energy efficiency. These measures can also deliver improved air quality and there is broad recognition of the health benefits of decarbonising energy. Monetising these health benefits is an important part of a robust assessment of the costs and benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs (clean energy programs (CEP)) and a variety of methods have been used to estimate health benefits at national, regional, continental and global scales. Approaches, such as unit damage cost estimates and impact pathways, differ in complexity and spatial coverage and can deliver different estimates for air pollution costs/benefits. To date, the monetised health benefits of CEP in Australia have applied international and global estimates that can range from 2–229USD/tCO2 (USD 2016). Here, we calculate the current health damage costs of coal-fired power in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state, and the health benefits of CEP. Focusing on PM2.5 pollution, we estimate the current health impacts of coal-fired power at 3.20USD/MWh, approximately 10% of the generation costs, and much lower than previous estimates. We demonstrate the need for locally specific assessment of the air pollution benefits of CEP and illustrate that without locally specific information, the relative costs/benefits of CEP may be significantly over- or understated. We estimate that, for NSW, the health benefits from CEP are 1.80USD/MWh and that the current air pollution health costs of coal-fired power in NSW represent a significant unpriced externality. Keywords: clean energy; energy efficiency; air pollution; health benefits 1. Introduction Limiting global warming to well below 2 ◦ C requires substantial changes to the way that we generate and use electricity [1–4]. Decarbonising electricity supply calls for investments in low-emissions generation, whether through variable renewable sources such as wind, wave and solar or dispatchable renewables from hydroelectricity or biomass combustion [4]. Carbon capture and storage of emissions from fossil fuel generation can also contribute to decarbonisation, and bio-energy carbon capture and storage is likely to be a viable contribution in achieving negative emissions [1]. These measures also act to reduce toxic air pollutants either directly, or through reducing the emission of pollutant precursors [5]. There is extensive literature showing that least cost decarbonisation of the energy sector is likely to include significant improvements in end-use energy efficiency [6–8]. Im- proving residential, commercial and industrial energy efficiency has been a focus of many Energies 2021, 14, 7622. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14227622 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies