Greenhouse gas emissions reduction by use of wind and solar energies for hydrogen and electricity production: Economic factors

This study addresses economic aspects of introducing renewable technologies in place of fossil fuel ones to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike for traditional fossil fuel technologies, greenhouse gas emissions from renewable technologies are associated mainly with plant construction and the magnitudes are significantly lower. The prospects are shown to be good for producing the environmentally clean fuel hydrogen via water electrolysis driven by renewable energy sources. Nonetheless, the cost of wind- and solar-based electricity is still higher than that of electricity generated in a natural gas power plant. With present costs of wind and solar electricity, it is shown that, when electricity from renewable sources replaces electricity from natural gas, the cost of greenhouse gas emissions abatement is about four times less than if hydrogen from renewable sources replaces hydrogen produced from natural gas. When renewable-based hydrogen is used in a fuel cell vehicle instead of gasoline in a IC engine vehicle, the cost of greenhouse gas emissions reduction approaches the same value as for renewable-based electricity only if the fuel cell vehicle efficiency exceeds significantly (i.e., by about two times) that of an internal combustion vehicle. It is also shown that when 6000 wind turbines (Kenetech KVS-33) with a capacity of 350 kW and a capacity factor of 24% replace a 500-MW gas-fired power plant with an efficiency of 40%, annual greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 2.3 megatons. The incremental additional annual cost is about $280 million (US). The results provide a useful approach to an optimal strategy for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.     

Increasing renewable energy sources in island energy supply: case study Porto Santo

While the energy supply of most islands depends mainly on expensive oil derivatives’ importation, the others are linked by usually a weak electricity grid connection to the mainland. Due to high energy costs the islands are proving to be excellent test beds for the introduction of new technologies, and some islands are trying to become so-called renewable islands, to satisfy their energy demand mainly or entirely from indigenous and renewable sources, thus increasing the security of supply, and employment opportunities, without necessarily increasing the costs. Islands that have energy sources, such as hydro or geothermal energy, can easily integrate them into the power system, but those with mainly intermittent renewable energy sources are confronted with the necessity of energy storage. The most promising technologies are reversible hydro where geography allows, and storing hydrogen where it does not. The stored hydrogen can later be used for electricity production, and also for transport. This paper describes the H₂RES model for optimisation of integration of hydrogen usage with intermittent renewable energy sources on the example of an isolated island in the Madeira archipelago, Porto Santo. It shows that it is possible to significantly increase the penetration of renewable energy sources, albeit at a relatively high cost, with hydrogen storage technology. The H₂RES model, which includes reversible hydro and batteries as storage technologies, can serve as a valuable tool for island energy planning.     

H2 Optimization and Fuel Cells Application on Electrical Distribution System and Its Commercial Viability in Australia

Conventional energy technologies are not environmentally friendly, are not renewable, and also the cost of using fossil and nuclear fuels will go higher and higher (anecdotal evidence suggests that consumers will be paying three times their current bill 5 years from now). Therefore, renewable energy sources will play important roles in electricity generation. This paper highlights the advantages of renewable technologies, like future prospects for the poor population, being environmentally friendly, and also available in abundance. This paper points outs the factors seeking hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology to eradicate environmental disasters. This paper is significant as it looks into optimal utilization of renewable energy sources with major emphasis on H₂ optimization and fuel cells application utilizing cogeneration technology. This paper discusses the multiple hydrogen production pathways from different sources, including renewable and nonrenewable sources, H₂ safety, and also barriers to use of hydrogen energy. This paper recommends different types of quantitative and qualitative methods for optimal energy planning, and different types of fuel cells are also discussed. This paper explains a hybrid system inclusive of renewable energy, with its types and benefits. Finally, this paper concludes that Australia could switch from conventional fossil fuel technology to hybrid energy inclusive of renewable energy.     

Energy diversification in Finland: achievements and potential of renewable energy development

Finland was an early adopter of several alternative energy technologies, particularly in biomass and hydropower energy for many years. The main policy in the Finnish energy and climate sectors is to increase the exploitation of renewable energy sources while reducing CO₂ emissions. Meanwhile, a successful energy policy should achieve three conflicting objectives: clean, cheap, and secure energy. The development of renewables in Finland has lagged that of other EU countries, particularly in fields such as wind power in recent years. This article discusses about the history, current status, and potentials of the major renewable and local energy in order of utilisation in Finland. It is seen that the major contributors to replacing carbon-based fuels are likely to be biomass and wind power, with geothermal and solar energy sources to play a lesser role.     

Energy, economics and environmental impacts of renewable energy systems

The renewable based electricity generation technologies were assessed against a range of sustainability indicators using data obtained from the literature. These indicators are cost of electricity generation, greenhouse gas emissions and energy pay-back time. All the three parameters were found to have a very wide range for each technology. For grading different renewable energy sources a new figure of merit has been proposed, linking greenhouse gas emissions, energy pay-back time and cost of electricity generated by these renewable energy sources. It has been found out that wind and small hydro are the most sustainable source for the electricity generation.     

Review of green electricity production in Slovenia

The article presents a short review of electricity production from renewable energy sources in Slovenia. In Introduction the term of “green electricity” is defined. Comparison of structures of electricity production is presented for the years 1990 and 2003. The main part of the article presents an approximate data for technical and theoretical potentials of renewable energy sources in Slovenia. State-of-the-art regarding individual technologies of electricity production from renewable energy sources and political targets according to Directive 2001/77/EC for green electricity are also presented. At the end of the article different stimulation models are described and uniform prices and premiums for the purchase of green electrical energy are presented.     

Storage technologies for wind power in the Columbia River Gorge

The transition from traditional energy sources to renewable has gained popularity and acceptance in recent years. This has been driven mainly by the current level of pollution, global warming, decommission of old nuclear power plants and the increasing cost of conventional energy sources. Nevertheless, one of the many steps to overcome is the seasonality or intermittency of renewable energy sources such as wind power. In recent years, new technologies have come up to address this problem, so the energy can be stored for future purposes. This paper analyses these energy storage alternatives for a specific case in the Columbia River Gorge for wind power. A hierarchical decision model is developed with criteria including political, social, environmental, technical and economical. The main conclusions highlight that the economical and technical criteria are among the most important ones for decision-makers.     

Multi-objective assessment of rural electrification in remote areas with poverty considerations

Rural electrification with renewable energy technologies (RETs) offers several benefits to remote areas where diesel generation is unsuitable due to fuel supply constraints. Such benefits include environmental and social aspects, which are linked to energy access and poverty reduction in less-favored areas of developing countries. In this case, multi-objective methods are suitable tools for planning in rural areas. In this study, assessment of rural electrification with renewable energy systems is conducted by means of goal programming towards fuel substitution. The approach showed that, in the Non-Interconnected Zones of Colombia, substitution of traditional biomass with an electrification scheme using renewable energy sources provides significant environmental benefits, measured as land use and avoided emissions, as well as higher employment generation rates than diesel generation schemes. Nevertheless, fuel substitution is constrained by the elevated cost of electricity compared to traditional biomass, which raises households’ energy expenditures between twofold to five times higher values. The present approach, yet wide in scope, is still limited for quantifying the impact of energy access improvements on poverty reduction, as well as for the assessment of energy system's technical feasibility.     

Renewable energy policy in Turkey with the new legal regulations

Since the energy crises in the 1970’s, public and private decision makers are considering how to achieve a sustainable transition from fossil fuel based energy to sustainable and clean energies - namely renewable energies. Combined with the improvement of energy efficiency and the rational use of energy, renewable energy can provide everything fossil fuels currently offer in terms of heating and cooling, electricity generation and transportation. Renewable energy technologies posses many long term benefits including energy security, job creation, business opportunities, sustainable development and prevention of global warming.Turkey’s population is growing at an annual rate of 1.04%. If Turkey uses only traditional energy sources, it simply will not have enough energy capacity for its population. Renewable energy sources have the potential to make a large contribution to Turkey’s sustainable and independent energy future.Turkey aims to utilize its energy potential, including from renewable sources in a cost-effective manner. Turkey targets the share of renewable resources in electricity generation to be at least 30% by 2023 has in its 2009 Electricity Market and Security of Supply Strategy. Positive achievements have been obtained in renewable energy development and manufacturing in Turkey over the past decade. The renewable energy related legislation has been intensified. To meet its 30% target, the current promotion mechanism for renewable sources of electricity relies on feed-in tariffs for different renewable energy sources. Large hydropower is already competitive to conventional fossil-based electricity, so feed-in tariffs in the new RE Law are set to facilitate expanding the deployment of other, less mature renewable energy technologies.     

Waste-to-energy: A way from renewable energy sources to sustainable development

Nowadays, energy is key consideration in discussions of sustainable development. So, sustainable development requires a sustainable supply of clean and affordable renewable energy sources that do not cause negative societal impacts. Energy sources such as solar radiation, the winds, waves and tides are generally considered renewable and, therefore, sustainable over the relatively long term. Wastes and biomass fuels are usually viewed as sustainable energy sources. Wastes are convertible to useful energy forms like hydrogen (biohydrogen), biogas, bioalcohol, etc., through waste-to-energy technologies.In this article, possible future energy utilization patterns and related environmental impacts, potential solutions to current environmental problems and renewable energy technologies and their relation to sustainable development are discussed with great emphasis on waste-to-energy routes (WTERs).     

An overview of the environmental,economic, and material developments of the solar and wind sources coupled with the energy storage systems

There is a constant growth in energy consumption and consequently energy generation around the world. During the recent decades, renewable energy sources took heed of scientists and policy makers as a remedy for substituting traditional sources. Wind and photovoltaic (PV) are the least reliable sources because of their dependence on wind speed and irradiance and therefore their intermittent nature. Energy storage systems are usually coupled with these sources to increase the reliability of the hybrid system. Environmental effects are one of the biggest concerns associated with the renewable energy sources. This study summarizes the last and most important environmental and economic analysis of a grid‐connected hybrid network consisting of wind turbine, PV panels, and energy storage systems. Focusing on environmental aspects, this paper reviews land efficiency, shaded analysis of wind turbines and PV panels, greenhouse gas emission, wastes of wind turbine and PV panels' components, fossil fuel consumption, wildlife, sensitive ecosystems, health benefits, and so on. A cost analysis of the energy generated by a hybrid system has been discussed. Furthermore, this study reviews the latest technologies for materials that have been used for solar PV manufacturing. This paper can help to make a right decision considering all aspects of installing a hybrid system. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors influencing the public intention to use renewable energy technologies in South Korea: Effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident

The Fukushima accident has influenced public attitudes toward energy sources and technologies, including not only nuclear energy, but also other energy sources. Therefore, it is worth investigating how the accident influenced public perceptions of renewable energy and its technologies, between the time before the accident and after the accident. This study aims to explore the effects of the Fukushima accident on the public perceptions of renewable energy technologies in South Korea, the closest nation to Japan. This study found that there were notable differences of public perceptions, including public attitudes, perceived benefits, trust, intention to use, knowledge and risks between before and after the earthquake. In addition, the perceived cost of renewable energy technologies was the primary determinant of the intention to use the technologies before the accident, whereas public attitudes toward the technologies became the main antecedents of the intention after the accident. After the accident, we found that there is a multi-dimensional matrix of perceived trust-benefits (with risks)-attitude-intention to use, in explaining the public acceptance of renewable energy technologies. Moreover, we found significant roles of the perceived trust, benefits and risks in the research model. Based on the empirical findings, both implications and suggestions are presented.     

Green electricity market development: Lessons from Europe and the US

This study compares the development and implementation of green electricity policies in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States, a set of countries applying a range of policy instruments to encourage electricity from renewable energy sources. A general tendency is identified that policies shift emphasis from R&D stimulation towards dissemination and market application of renewable energy technologies. We argue that in light of the long term nature of policy goals on energy security, mitigation of climate change, and environmental protection, the applied range of policy instruments may be lacking in providing incentives for the long term development of new technologies. Clarifying policy objectives would allow careful selection of policy instruments, including support for R&D. Improved capacity building for policy implementation is also important.     

Renewable and sustainable approaches for desalination

Freshwater and energy are essential commodities for well being of mankind. Due to increasing population growth on the one hand, and rapid industrialization on the other, today's world is facing unprecedented challenge of meeting the current needs for these two commodities as well as ensuring the needs of future generations. One approach to this global crisis of water and energy supply is to utilize renewable energy sources to produce freshwater from impaired water sources by desalination. Sustainable practices and innovative desalination technologies for water reuse and energy recovery (staging, waste heat utilization, hybridization) have the potential to reduce the stress on the existing water and energy sources with a minimal impact to the environment. This paper discusses existing and emerging desalination technologies and possible combinations of renewable energy sources to drive them and associated desalination costs. It is suggested that a holistic approach of coupling renewable energy sources with technologies for recovery, reuse, and recycle of both energy and water can be a sustainable and environment friendly approach to meet the world's energy and water needs. High capital costs for renewable energy sources for small-scale applications suggest that a hybrid energy source comprising both grid-powered energy and renewable energy will reduce the desalination costs considering present economics of energy.     

Renewislands—Renewable energy solutions for islands

Increase of the global energy demand and environmental problems relating to fossil energy utilization request the new energy sources to replace the traditional fossil fuels. With respect to energy production, most of the islands in European Union and in the other parts of the world, depend on importation, mainly from oil and its related products. The global development of renewable energy technologies can assure sustainable supply of power for islands. To overcome the limitation of the sources of renewable energy, hydrogen is utilized as a storage medium integrated with intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. This paper introduces the programme of “Renewislands—Renewable Energy Solutions for Islands”, the work tasks, details of the design of the activities to develop solutions integrating intermittent renewable energy supply (RES), fuel cell (FC) and hydrogen infrastructure to promote RES and innovative decentralized power systems penetration in islands; main results achieved in each work packages are presented; in addition, the development of intermittent renewable energy penetration in specific European Islands are reviewed briefly.     

The impact of intermittently renewable energy on Italian wholesale electricity prices: Additional benefits or additional costs?

Most studies of the literature find that the development of renewable energy sources determines a decrease in the wholesale prices. Some authors use this finding to state that the current subsidies for renewable technologies cannot be considered as excessive. By carrying out a hybrid analysis (both simulation and ex-post empirical analyses) of the case of photovoltaic energy in Italy, this article demonstrates that this result cannot be generalised. Under market power, an increase in PV production can provide benefits in terms of a wholesale price decrease only beyond a specific threshold and especially if combined with other effects. Otherwise, it is likely that PV development could imply an increase in prices. Therefore, on the one hand, caution is necessary when using the estimated change in wholesale prices to evaluate the net cost for consumers of the supporting policies for renewables: either the simulation-based models or the full empirical analyses may be misleading. On the other hand, if "decarbonisation" is the main objective, the energy policies should be designed in order to assure a deep and balanced penetration of the clean technologies, regardless of their estimated transitory impact on wholesale prices (and in the meantime reviewing the organisation of power markets).     

Cost effects of international trade in meeting EU renewable electricity targets

The European market for renewable electricity received a major stimulus from the adoption of the Directive on the Promotion of Renewable Electricity. The Directive specifies the indicative targets for electricity supply from renewable energy sources (RES-E) to be reached in European Union (EU) Member States in the year 2010. It also requires Member States to certify the origin of their renewable electricity production. This article presents a first EU-wide quantitative evaluation of the effects of meeting the targets, using an EU-wide system for tradable green certificates (TGC). We calculate the equilibrium price of green certificates and identify which countries are likely to export or import certificates. Cost advantages of participating in such an EU-wide trading scheme are determined for each of the Member States. Moreover, we identify which choice of technologies results in meeting targets at least costs. Results are obtained from a model that quantifies the effects of achieving the RES-E targets in the EU with and without trade. The article provides a brief insight in this model as well as the methodology that was used to specify cost potential curves for renewable electricity in each of the 15 EU Member States. Model calculations show that within the EU-wide TGC system, the total production costs of the last option needed to satisfy the overall EU RES-E target equals 9.2 eurocent/kWh. Assuming that the production price of electricity on the European power market would equal 3 eurocent/kWh in the year 2010, the indicative green certificate price equals 6.2 eurocent/kWh. We conclude that implementation of an EU-wide TGC system is a cost-efficient way of stimulating renewable electricity supply.     

Renewable energy and sustainable development in Turkey

Achieving solutions to environmental problems that we face today requires long-term potential actions for sustainable development. In this regard, renewable energy resources appear to be the one of the most efficient and effective solutions. So clean, domestic and renewable energy is commonly accepted as the key for future life for Turkey. Turkey's geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of most of these renewable energy sources. Because of this and the fact that it has limited fossil fuel resources, a gradual shift from fossil fuels to renewables seems to be serious and the sole alternative for Turkey. This article presents a review of the present energy situation and sustainability, technical and economical potential of renewable energy sources and future policies for the energy sector in Turkey. Also, potential solutions to current environmental problems are identified along with renewable energy technologies. Throughout the paper several problems relating to renewable energy sources, environment and sustainable development are discussed from both current and future perspectives. The renewable energy potential of the country and their present use are evaluated here based on the available data. The present study shows that there is an important potential for renewables in Turkey.     

Are the alternative energy strategies achievable?

The constraints on penetration of energy technologies are time and information, net energy, and capital cost. As D. Spreng has pointed out, time, energy, and information constitute a triad: energy can be substituted for time, information can be substituted for energy. That energy can save time follows from irreversible thermodynamics, but the principle can be extended to the social sphere. Related to the energy-time exchange is the economic cost of intermittency of energy supply. Renewable energy sources, particularly solar sources, are characteristically intermittent. To eliminate intermittency imposes a cost which must be considered in planning energy futures based on renewable sources. Two other constraints on penetration of energy technologies—net energy and capital cost—are briefly considered. As for net energy, estimates of energy paybacks for solar thermal electric converters differ by factors of three; this introduces large uncertainties in the energy subsidy required for this technology. As for capital cost, the Peterka theory of technological change is shown to place limits on the amount of subsidy required to introduce a new energy technology.     

A methodology for the electrical energy system planning of Tamil Nadu state (India)

In this paper, an energy planning optimisation procedure of a selected territory is illustrated and applied using an energy flow optimisation model. The developed approach takes into account various electricity generating options to meet the energy needs of various demand sectors. Energy saving techniques and hybrid technologies are considered and various scenarios are developed by assessing the contribution of renewable energy technologies over the planning period. The procedure aims to reduce the total actualised cost of energy generation over selected time horizon and predicts the additional installations required along with the existing facilities to meet the energy demand. At the same time the role of renewable energy technologies and of energy saving measures is evaluated by imposing suitable constraints on CO₂ emissions and primary energy sources exploitation. The procedure is applied to the territory of Tamil Nadu state (India) by considering different energy planning scenarios.