Contours of the energy transition: Investment by international oil and gas companies in renewable energy

International oil and gas companies are deploying a range of strategies to invest in renewable energy technologies and projects. By now, the IOCs have become substantive players in the renewables market, lending their scale and business expertise to deploying clean energy. But they have seen mixed success in their efforts thus far, and the models IOCs choose to follow as they become interested in deploying renewables are still emerging.     

Electric vehicle and solar energy pilot: Opportunity to address suburban energy challenges

Low- and moderate-income communities in suburban areas are dependent on transportation to meet basic needs. This case study describes an innovative approach by GRID Alternatives and Valley Clean Air Now (Valley CAN) to combine solar rooftop with electric vehicle incentives. Wider deployment of these technologies could decrease costs and increase access to renewable energy and EVs for potentially vulnerable families with high transportation and electricity costs.     

可再生能源电价附加补助管理应用实践

近年来,宁夏地区水力发电、风力发电、光伏发电及生物质能发电等可再生能源发电项目不断增加,采用手工方式统计难度越来越大,已成为制约国网宁夏电力公司提高电价管理水平的瓶颈。为了解决可再生能源补助资金的统计、分析难题,国网宁夏电力公司利用远光财务管控模块的现有功能,通过拓展主数据、增加业务单据、增加统计分析报表等方式,有效地解决了上述问题,极大地提高了可再生能源补助管理工作效率。     

考虑碳交易的综合能源系统在不同配置情景下的运行分析

大量分布式可再生能源发电机组的部署和碳排放交易的成本可对综合能源系统的运行产生重要影响。首先,针对电热综合能源系统,本文建立了考虑负荷需求、风速、太阳辐射强度和碳排放交易成本等不确定性因素的热网-主动配电网耦合模型。其次,本文采用多时段蒙特卡洛树状仿真的随机方法,分析可再生能源发电集成度和碳排放交易成本对系统运行总成本的影响。最后,本文以新疆能源系统为对象进行了算例分析。算例仿真结果表明:在新能源补贴下滑的大环境下,碳排放交易的实施可以为政府推进可再生能源装机提供新的动力。     

Assessing effects of renewable deployment on emissions in the Saudi power sector until 2040 using integer optimization

We quantify the impacts of renewable deployment on carbon emissions and natural gas supply in the Saudi power sector. A capacity expansion model, which simultaneously considers generation and transmission builds covering a planning horizon up to 2040, was created. The simulated scenarios, which entailed retiring liquid fuels from the Saudi power sector and accounted for different gas prices, consider the following candidate build technologies: nuclear, gas, solar photovoltaics, wind, concentrated solar power with storage, and battery storage. Renewables can reduce carbon emissions by 66 million tons to 114 million tons (25–41 %) by 2040 depending on the gas price. The abatement costs were estimated to range between 20 $/ton and 50 $/ton of carbon dioxide. Within Saudi Arabia, renewable deployment can also defer national gas supply expansion plans but not investments in expanding domestic gas transport capacities. Finally, under certain conditions when deploying significant renewable capacity, better transmission interconnection between regions manages renewable intermittency more cost-effectively than storage deployment.     

How can energy storage catalyze GCC electricity policy? Issues and options

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members have a parallel agenda of electricity market reforms together with ambitious goals of renewable energy deployment. The motivation for this agenda is multifaceted and extends beyond increasing economic efficiency. Renewable integration raises market and regulatory design issues for countries transitioning to markets and high levels of renewables though. This difficulty or perhaps even incompatibility may undercut both policies’ objectives. This paper analyses the implications of deploying new energy storage in this context. Although storage services would facilitate the integration of renewables and market restructuring policies, deploying this novel technology would raise additional regulatory issues in the electricity sector. Ignoring these regulatory challenges could not only lead to unnecessary costs of transition but also make it more difficult to obtain the full benefits of other economic policy objectives such as the removal of subsidies to relieve public finances and the release oil for sale in international markets.     

Renewable energy credit driven wind power growth for system reliability

Environmental concerns over electric power generation from conventional sources has led to widespread public support for renewable energy sources. Governments throughout the world have responded by providing various forms of financial incentives to promote power generation from renewable energy sources. The rapid growth of wind power since the last decade has primarily been driven by governmental subsidies. Long-term growth of wind power should, however, be driven by sustainable market mechanisms. A potential solution is to recognize monetary values to the environmental benefits from renewable energy sources, and to specify targets for their growth. The environmental benefits from wind sources can be leveraged to allow market competition of these sources with the less costly conventional generating sources. A probabilistic method to evaluate the impact of renewable energy credit and wind penetration level on the cost and adequacy of power generating systems is presented in this paper. The technique incorporates reliability and economic analyses and is applied to a published test system to illustrate the results and their influence on key system variables. The paper provides useful information to system planners and policy makers on wind energy application in electric power systems.     

Stronger together: The value impacts of hybridizing distributed wind

While over 1400 GW of distributed wind potential has been documented in the United States, less than 0.01% of that has been deployed to date. Significant amounts of renewable resources will need to be deployed in coming years to meet national clean energy goals, making the identification of opportunities and barriers to deployment for this resource a topic of high interest. Wind resource variability, which can cause uncertainty and instability in the grid and affect the number of attainable and beneficial applications the resource can pursue, is often a common hurdle to deployment. Pairing distributed wind with other technologies, such as solar photovoltaics and/or energy storage, however, has the ability to alleviate this issue through generation complementarity and increased dispatchability. Both characteristics have the potential to increase project value across a range of applications from bulk energy to ancillary services. Understanding where and how value differs under various hybrid configurations (e.g., distributed wind with solar, distributed wind with solar and storage) can overcome barriers to deployment and improve the economic vitality of projects. In this study, we describe the potential value impacts of adding solar photovoltaics and/or energy storage to a distributed wind energy installation, provide a qualitative ranking system for each value stream that might be available for the new hybrid power system, and present quantitative results for the potential dollars per year that might be possible for select value streams. From a benefits perspective, we find that hybridizing has the potential to add value to all value streams, with the addition of energy storage providing greater value impact than that of solar photovoltaics.     

Quantifying net energy metering subsidies

Net energy metering (NEM) is the policy available in many states that promotes customer-owned rooftop solar power generation by compensating rooftop solar owners for each kWh that it generates at the retail rates. To help understand the magnitude of the residential net metering subsidies, we conducted a study to assess the subsidies for 16 US utilities with varying geographic location, size, rooftop solar penetration, and NEM policy.     

Analysis of renewable energy projects’ implementation in Russia

With the enactment in 2013 of a renewable energy scheme by contracting qualified power generation facilities working on renewable energy sources (RES), the process of construction and connection of such facilities to the Federal Grid Company has intensified in Russia. In 2013–2015, 93 projects of solar, wind, and small hydropower energy were selected on the basis of competitive bidding in the country with the purpose of subsequent support. Despite some technical and organizational problems and a time delay of some RES projects, in 2014–2015 five solar generating facilities with total capacity of 50 MW were commissioned, including 30 MW in Orenburg oblast. However, the proportion of successful projects is low and amounts to approximately 30% of the total number of announced projects. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the experience of implementation of renewable energy projects that passed through a competitive selection and gained the right to get a partial compensation for the construction and commissioning costs of RES generating facilities in the electric power wholesale market zone. The informational background for the study is corporate reports of project promoters, analytical and information materials of the Association NP Market Council, and legal documents for the development of renewable energy. The methodological base of the study is a theory of learning curves that assumes that cost savings in the production of high-tech products depends on the production growth rate (economy of scale) and gaining manufacturing experience (learning by doing). The study has identified factors that have a positive and a negative impact on the implementation of RES projects. Improvement of promotion measures in the renewable energy development in Russia corresponding to the current socio-economic situation is proposed.     

蒙西地区储能技术经济性优化配置研究

蒙西地区近年来可再生能源装机容量占比逐年提高,亟须配置大规模储能降低其间歇性、波动性给电力系统带来的影响。为实现蒙西地区储能的最优化配置,设计提出蒙西地区储能技术经济性优化配置模型。首先,兼顾技术性和经济性对蒙西地区储能的选址、选型开展研究。其次,以平抑风光出力波动性最大化和包含外部价值在内的储能项目收益最大化为目标,构建储能技术经济性优化配置模型,并采用NSGA-II算法对该模型进行求解。对蒙西某风光聚集地区的实证研究表明：当风光出力波动抑制率控制在30%以内,且光伏占风机的装机比例较低时,配置一定规模的储能可在技术、经济2个方面收到显著成效。最后,基于选址选型和实证分析结果,给出蒙西地区的储能配置方案。     

国外聚焦式太阳能发电的进展与实践经验

聚焦式太阳能电力（CSP）作为一种清洁能源利用方式,在最近几年得到了普遍认可,很多国家和地区都在大力发展,它是一种很有潜力的电力生产模式。详细介绍当前世界上多个国家的CSP发展情况与特色,包括美国西南部的可再生能源组合标准、西班牙针对CSP项目的税收补贴计划、澳大利亚的CSP科研投入与技术进步、意大利的政府补贴模式,其先进的聚焦式太阳能发电技术和经验,可以为我国能源利用起到借鉴作用。     

蒙西地区储能技术经济性优化配置研究

蒙西地区近年来可再生能源装机容量占比逐年提高,亟须配置大规模储能降低其间歇性、波动性给电力系统带来的影响。为实现蒙西地区储能的最优化配置,设计提出蒙西地区储能技术经济性优化配置模型。首先,兼顾技术性和经济性对蒙西地区储能的选址、选型开展研究。其次,以平抑风光出力波动性最大化和包含外部价值在内的储能项目收益最大化为目标,构建储能技术经济性优化配置模型,并采用NSGA-II算法对该模型进行求解。对蒙西某风光聚集地区的实证研究表明：当风光出力波动抑制率控制在30%以内,且光伏占风机的装机比例较低时,配置一定规模的储能可在技术、经济2个方面收到显著成效。最后,基于选址选型和实证分析结果,给出蒙西地区的储能配置方案。     

中国可再生能源消费预测及补贴策略研究

可再生能源消费受多种因素影响,简单的灰色模型已经不能对可再生能源消费作出准确预测。将传统的灰色GM(1,1)模型与缓冲算子相结合,模拟和预测中国的可再生能源消费,探究了政策补贴对中国可再生能源消费的影响,在预测结果基础之上构建了2种政策补贴策略模型,研究了中国可再生能源消费的政策补贴力度。结果显示,基于缓冲算子的GM(1,1)方法拟合效果更好,模型精度更高; 2013—2020年中国可再生能源消费占比呈现递增趋势,但是在停止政策补贴力度的情况下,增长趋势明显低于延续原有政策补贴力度。     

Capacity market design and renewable energy: Performance incentives,qualifying capacity,and demand curves

A review of capacity markets in the United States in the context of increasing levels of variable renewable energy finds substantial differences with respect to incentives for operational performance, methods to calculate qualifying capacity for variable renewable energy and energy storage, and demand curves for capacity. The review also reveals large differences in historical capacity market clearing prices. The authors conclude that electricity market design must continue to evolve to achieve cost-effective policies for resource adequacy.     

可再生能源,未来能源之星

可再生能源是清洁能源,是自然界中可以不断再生、永续利用、取之不尽、用之不竭的资源.一旦建成,不必再有原料的投入.它对环境无害或危害极小,而且资源分布广泛,适宜就地开发利用.可再生能源主要包括太阳能、风能、水能、生物质能、地热能和海洋能等.对太阳能、风能、水能、生物质能、地热能和海洋能等可再生能源概念、特点、能源利用历史、现状和未来发展进行了综述,从而得出结论:有了可再生能源,我们的文明方有永续的可能.     

CCUS in a net-zero U.S. power sector: Policy design,rates, and project finance

Carbon capture utilization and storage is an important technology option to rapidly and profoundly decarbonize the power sector, but will not deploy without substantial incentives or regulation. Assessment of U.S. policy options reveals that current incentives only partially close the finance gap and are most sensitive to fuel type and ownership structure. Recent proposed legislation would in some designs attract private investment for many projects, leading to widespread deployment of CCUS in the power sector. Additional constraints and concerns (including technology options and presence of CO₂ infrastructure) could play an important secondary role. This study discusses the specific US incentive policies that can provide investors and lenders with net cash flows that are adequate to attract private capital to CCUS power projects in the US.     

Why the vision of interregional electric transmission development in FERC Order 1000 is not happening

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on March 19, 2020 announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR)ⁱ to further investigate how financial incentives might be used to encourage development of high-voltage electric transmission in the United States. An extension of previous efforts in FERC Order 679 issued in 2006, the NOPR-proposed incentives would consist of up to 250 additional basis points of equity return to be allowed on qualifying transmission projects. The NOPR was published in the Federal Register on April 2, and public comments were due back to FERC by July 1.Such incentives, if adopted, would be helpful to address prior FERC business that is yet undone. Issued in 2011, FERC Order 1000, “Transmission and Cost Allocation by Transmission Owning and Operating Utilities” among other things envisioned coordinated planning of interregional transmission developments spanning between individual Regional Transmission Organizations (RTO) and Independent System Operators (ISO), the operators of the FERC-regulated organized wholesale markets. In addition to traditional goals of generator interconnection and service reliability, the purpose of such interregional transmission development was to support public policy goals including renewable energy development, and lower costs for consumers.But little or no such interregional development has happened since Order 1000. Why? The authors have spent the last several years promoting development of one such interregional transmission project. While the effort is ongoing, the on-the-ground experience to-date clearly shows the reasons why interregional development envisioned by FERC Order 1000 is not happening. The authors offer solutions to the issues, including how the new FERC NOPR for transmission incentives can be helpful.     

光伏发电并网效率提升的关键技术研究现状

在人们对能源需求急剧增加,而化石能源日益匮乏的背景下,开发和利用太阳能等可再生资源越来越受重视。以太阳能电池为特征的光伏产业,普遍被世界各国看好。首先,太阳能因其储量的无限性、存在的普遍性、利用的清洁性以及实用的经济性,已经被公认是世界未来发展的主要可再生能源之一。但效率问题仍然困扰着光伏发电的最大问题。文章介绍了国内外相继出现了3种方法来提高太阳能光伏发电效率:首先提出的是太阳能跟踪算法,有效地提高了光伏阵列的受光量,进而提高其发电效率;其次针对光伏列阵单峰值与多峰值MPPT控制,介绍了几种常用的方法,并对其特点进行了对比;最后介绍了并网逆变器侧有两类检查孤岛的方法:有源法和无源法。     

Opportunities in energy: National policy approaches for addressing climate change

Last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and the Fourth National Climate Assessment both showed that to limit the worst consequences of climate change by keeping global average temperature increases to 1.5 C, the United States and other countries must achieve net-zero heat-trapping emissions economy-wide by mid-century, with nearly half of those reductions occurring by 2030. Decarbonizing the electric sector is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce emissions and can help decarbonize other sectors with increased electrification. While renewable energy and energy efficiency have grown significantly in recent years due to technology cost reductions, state policies, and federal tax incentives, our rate of emissions reduction does not go far enough. Our analysis shows that a well-designed national Low Carbon Electricity Standard (LCES), Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), or increasing carbon price can help get the U.S. on a pathway for decarbonizing the power sector by 2050. The most cost-effective strategy for reducing emissions in the near-term is through the increased deployment of wind and solar, regardless of the policy. How much the generation mix shifts to low-carbon resources is a function of the stringency of the policy. These policies can also spur the development of low-carbon electricity in parts of the country that are not as far along in their transition to a clean energy economy. Allowing a wide range of carbon-free and low-carbon resources to compete against each other could deliver the most low-carbon electricity at the lowest cost and help broaden support for these policies.