Formulating a modern energy companies’ environment in the EU accession member states through a decision support methodology

One of the current energy policy's goals in the European Union (EU) is the exchange of knowledge and experience between the EU-15 member states and the new as well as the candidate countries in issues regarding the development of Renewable Energy Sources and the promotion of Energy Efficiency (EE). Nowadays, the liberalization of energy markets and the deterioration of the climate, in combination with the non-stop crude oil price increase, have had a decisive influence on the development of the above sectors. In addition, one of the most important elements for the renewable energy and EE development is the enhancement of energy producers by renewable energy and Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), respectively. These companies’ success is based on the formulation of a modern environment in each EU member state. However, the environment in the new and candidate member states is less mature than the environment in the EU-15 member states, as it is still in its development phase. In this context, the main aim of this paper is to present a “multi-dimensional” decision support methodology for the formulation of modern energy companies’ operational environment in the 13 new and candidate member states of the EU.     

欧盟新成员国的可再生能源资源利用状况

欧盟国家的主要能源是化石燃料，将近2／3依靠进口。预计未来化石燃料在欧洲能源平衡方面的作用还将增强，进口能源将占能源消耗总量的70％以上。另一方面，发展可再生能源资源是欧盟能源政策的一个中心目标。     

Sustainable energy policy indicators: Review and recommendations

Nowadays, the development of a sustainable indicators’ framework towards the sustainable energy policy making should be characterized by clarity and transparency. Even though the energy policy making has been the subject of many researchers, studies proposing an appropriate framework of sustainable indicators that have to be used are not present in the international literature. The purpose of the current paper is to present an integrated review of the methodologies and the related activities of the energy indicators and to recommend an operational framework of appropriate indicators supporting thus the policy makers/analysts/citizens towards a sustainable energy policy making.     

Sustainable reference methodology for energy end-use efficiency data in the EU

One of the most important goals of the European energy policy involves the implementation of energy-efficiency measures in large scale so as to promote sustainable development in the European Union (EU) level. The multidimensional character of energy end-use efficiency (EEE) necessitates the collection of a number of related data, apart from the performance and system parameters data, such as socio-economic (e.g., employment, turnover) and Research and Development (R&D) expenditures. Moreover, improved co-ordination of EEE programmes and policies of the community and the member states so as a unified acceptable system to be developed for the monitoring of the EEE data with respect to the existing targets is of significant importance. Even though data-gathering efforts have been implemented, a lot of fragmented data and deduced findings are currently available, which sometimes lack consistency and verification. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to present a sustainable reference methodology for validating EEE data in EU, through the review of existing approaches and methods, defining of most relevant inconsistencies and gaps and provision of recommendations for improvements in EEE data aggregation and statistical interpretation, taking into consideration the related analysis of statisticians, energy technology experts and energy socio-economists.     

Methodological proposal for territorial distribution of the percentage reduction in gross inland energy consumption according to the EU energy policy strategic goal

A 20% reduction in the consumption of energy is one of the main goals of the European Union’s (EU) 20/20/20 Energy Strategy. But the uniform application of this overall goal to all of the countries is neither fair nor equitable, as it does not take into consideration the characteristics of the energy system in each Member State. This article therefore proposes a nonlinear distribution methodology with objective, dynamic goals for reducing gross inland energy consumption, according to the context and characteristics of each member state. We hope it will open discussion on how these overall goals can be weighted. Then we analyse the situation of the energy indicators related to energy efficiency in the reference year (2005) used by the EU for reaching its goal of reducing the gross inland consumption by 20% by 2020, and its progress from 1996 to 2007. Finally, the methodology proposed is applied to the year 2020 on the NUTS0 territorial level, that is, to members of the EU, according to the EUROSTAT Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). Weighting is done based on energy intensity, per capita gross inland consumption and per capita energy intensity in two scenarios, the EU-15 and EU-27.     

Use of EU structural funds for sustainable energy development in new EU member states

More wide use of renewable energy sources (RES) and increase in energy supply and use efficiency can make a valuable contribution to the meeting sustainable energy development targets. The article presents a detailed overview of possibilities to use the EU Structural Funds available for new member states (NMS) to finance sustainable energy projects and to overcome market failures related with negative externalities of pollution, positive externalities of knowledge and adoption of new pollution reduction technologies and incomplete information. The analysis of current situation of the use of EU Structural funds (SF) for the implementation of sustainable energy projects in Lithuania, Poland and Check Republic was performed based on RUSE project results. The proposals to enhance use of SF for sustainable energy projects in NMS were developed.     

Russian energy in the EU market: Bolstered institutionsand their effects

The article examines institutional changes in EU–Russian energy relations since 2000. The article explores the ability of transformed institutions to limit the politicisation of energy and to reconcile the EU competitive-market approach with Russian state capitalism. More specifically, the article focuses on changes in intergovernmental, transgovernmental and transnational interactions. The article demonstrates that the gradual strengthening of transgovernmental and transnational institutions has inhibited the politicisation of energy relations and facilitated regulative cooperation between the EU and Russia. However, the potential of shared institutions is constrained by internal institutions on both sides. In Russia, these obstacles are insufficient top-down delegation of responsibilities in the government and its great power aspirations. In the EU, key barriers include inter-institutional rivalries, the EU’s propensity to impose its legislation on external partners and the integration of energy policy with foreign policy. The article presents several policy implications. First, it is futile to institutionally impose the regulative paradigm of one partner on the other; rather, mutual dialogue is needed. Thus, institutions should be structured appropriately. Second, current depoliticisation will require the involvement of not only the EU and Russia but also transit countries, such as Ukraine. Third, transgovernmental and transnational cooperation should be nurtured because this is a useful channel for both information exchange and a regulative convergence of policy implementing mechanisms. Finally, this incremental regulative convergence is the only option available today for the EU and Russia; this is also a way to further depoliticise energy relations.     

A method of identifying and weighting indicators of energy efficiency assessment in Chinese residential buildings

This paper describes a method of identifying and weighting indicators for assessing the energy efficiency of residential buildings in China. A list of indicators of energy efficiency assessment in residential buildings in the hot summer and cold winter zone in China has been proposed, which supplies an important reference for policy makings in energy efficiency assessment in buildings. The research method applies a wide-ranging literature review and a questionnaire survey involving experts in the field. The group analytic hierarchy process (group AHP) has been used to weight the identified indicators. The size of survey samples are sufficient to support the results, which has been validated by consistency estimation. The proposed method could also be extended to develop the weighted indicators for other climate zones in China.     

The impact of international GHG trading regimes on penetration of new energy technologies and feasibility to implement EU Energy and Climate Package targets

The EU's new energy and environment policy - agreed by government leaders in their Council meeting in March 2007 - established a political agenda to tackle three core energy objectives: sustainability, economic competitiveness and security of supply. A triad of specific policies addresses these challenges: first, the 20/20/20 targets of the EU; then, the Second Strategic Energy Review of the European Commission; and finally, plans to liberalise energy markets. The European Union's ‘20/20/20′ targets for 2020: reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% comparing with 1990 level (to become a 30% reduction if other major global economies join), increase the share of renewables in the final energy consumption to 20% and to achieve 20% improvement in energy efficiency compared to the level in 2020 if existing trends were to continue.The aim of the paper is to analyse the feasibility of EU to implement 20/20/20 targets under the various international GHG trading regimes. GHG trading regimes were addressed by developing 10 energy scenarios until 2020 for EU by applying several energy modelling tools ranging from top down partial equilibrium to detailed technology based bottom up models.     

Policy framework on energy access and key development indicators: ECOWAS interventions and the case of Ghana

Energy has become the main driver for development as industries grow, agricultural sectors become more modernized, economies boom and countries become wealthy. There are still vast majority of people living under the poverty line especially in the ECOWAS region. The purpose of this study is to explore how improvements in energy access can be a key driver in economic development and progress in the ECOWAS region. Data for the study was obtained from the database of the World Bank. A regression analysis was carried out to establish the relationships between energy access and development indicators. The paper suggests the need for policy makers in the ECOWAS region to focus on targets, such as household access, consumption of electricity, and ease of use instead on supply targets that focus merely on physical coverage. A case on how Ghana is improving energy access is presented.     

Economic challenges for the future relevance of biofuels in transport in EU countries

The discussion on the promotion of biofuels is ambiguous: on the one hand benefits like reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increase of energy supply security are expected, on the other hand low effectiveness with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and high costs are being criticized. The core objective of this paper is to investigate the market prospects of biofuels for transport in the EU in a dynamic framework till 2030. The major results of this analysis are: (i) Under current policy conditions – mainly exemption of excise taxes – the economic prospects of 1st generation biofuels in Europe are rather promising; the major problems of 1st generation biofuels are lack of available land for feedstocks and the modest ecological performance; (ii) Large expectations are currently put into advanced 2nd generation biofuels production from lignocellulosic materials. With respect to the future costs development of 2nd generation biofuels, currently it can only be stated that in a favourable case by 2030 they will be close to the costs of 1st generation biofuels. However, because of the increasing prices for fossil gasoline and diesel in all international scenarios – given remaining tax exemptions – biofuels will become competitive already in the next few years.     

欧盟的可再生能源促进政策对我们的启示

在环境问题的严峻挑战下,欧盟将可再生能源发展确立为关键的能源战略之一。欧盟在坚持固定电价制的同时确立可再生能源发电总量目标,在推进电力市场化改革的基础上强化对可再生电力的支持,并通过建立有效的化石燃料财税制度为可再生能源发展提供更广阔的空间。     

Renewable hydrogen energy regulations,codes and standards: Challenges faced by an EU candidate country

The European Union is one of the most important players in the field of world energy with an integrated and well-organized energy market. However, energy policies in the EU are not sustainable. The EU is the world’s largest importer of fossil fuels and is leading global action in accelerating the transition to renewable energy and low-carbon economy at present. Renewables make the second-largest contribution to domestic energy production after coal.     

On the use of an energy certification database to create indicators for energy planning purposes: Application in northern Italy

Energy certification of buildings, mandatory under the European Directive EPBD provides interesting data on the thermo-physical properties and geometry of existing buildings. Although the energy certificate is intended to provide the characteristics of individual buildings, so stimulating the real estate market toward ever better energy performance, data management of the certificates issued over time, using a national or regional energy cadastre, makes available a data base which is useful for energy planning in the building sector.This paper provides the needed results of a benchmarking study on data from the energy cadastre of the Lombardy Region, northern Italy. By integrating data from the energy cadastre (175.778 energy certificates) with the statistical data obtained from the national census, indicators were obtained on the energy performance of existing buildings.The energy indicators obtained, characterised by building type and construction period, normalised as a function of Degree-Days, become an effective tool for energy planning at local and regional scales. In the specific case, the energy indicators have been used to estimate the potential for energy retrofit of existing buildings in the Lombardy Region. The same indicators can also be used by municipalities for energy planning at the municipal or district level.     

World energy markets and the developing countries

Primary energy consumption in the developing countries has been increasing rapidly in the last ten years, giving rise to the prospect that these countries will play an even greater role in world energy markets. This paper describes the adjustments to higher petroleum prices that have taken place in the developing countries and looks at their likely future role. For the purpose of exposition, the developing countries are divided into oil-exporting and oil-importing groups. Analysis is conducted mostly at the aggregate level but fuel-specific and sectoral trends are also identified. The author notes that the experience of the last ten years suggests that the dramatic increases in international petroleum prices had a relatively minor impact on the developing countries′ total energy consumption. There was, however, a significant degree of substitution for other fuels for petroleum in the oil-importing developing countries. The prognostications for the future presented in this paper are based on the assumption that adjustments to price changes take more time in the developing countries. A reasonable degree of adjustment can be expected for the years ahead.     

Global energy security and the implications for the EU

The following article will analyse the global and geopolitical dimensions of the future international energy security and its implications for Europe and the EU-27. In this context, I will discuss to which extent the EU's newly proclaimed “Energy Action Plan” of the EU Spring summit of 2007 and its declared common energy (foreign) policy are a sufficient strategy to cope with the new global and geopolitical challenges. The article concludes the following: (1) The interlinkage between globally designed traditional energy security concepts – that rely just on economic factors and “market-strategies” – and domestic as well as regional political stability demands new thinking with regard to both energy supply security and foreign and security policies. (2) Although after the Russian–Ukrainian gas conflict in January 2006, energy security has forced its way up the European energy and foreign policy agendas, the EU-27 member states have largely failed to forge a coherent European energy security and energy foreign policy strategy after their Spring summit of 2007 because its declared political solidarity has been still lacking. But the 2nd Strategic Energy Review of November 2008 has recommended new initiatives to overcome this lack by promoting concrete infrastructure and other projects for enhancing Europe's supply security and its political solidarity as part of a common energy (foreign) policy. If the EU is able to implement the March 2007 and November 2008 decisions, the EU oil and gas demand will drastically reduce and freeze at current levels. In this case, Putin's energy policies by using Russia's energy resources and pipeline monopolies as a political instrument to enforce its economic and geopolitical interests will be proved as self-defeating in Russia's long-term strategic interests. It will reduce Gazprom's gas exports to a much smaller EU gas market than originally forecasted as the result of a deliberate EU policy of decreasing its overall gas demand and by diversifying its gas imports.     

A methodology for validating the renewable energy data in EU

The multidimensional character of renewable energy sources (RES) necessitates the collection of a number of related data in order to support EU policy needs. Apart from the technology and techno-physical data also socioeconomic (e.g. employment, turnover) data and R&D expenditures are of critical relevance. The monitoring of the above RES data with respect to the existing targets for RES is of significant importance. In addition to this, even though significant data gathering efforts have been implemented, a lot of fragmented data and deduced findings are currently available, which sometimes lack consistency and verification. As a result, RES data validation and completion capacity is needed in the framework of the European Union (EU) energy policy. In addition to this, agreed and validated RES data can help energy policy makers and relevant stakeholders answering to pressing energy socio-economics’ and sustainability issues. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to present a reference methodology for validating the RES Data in the EU. The development of the methodology is mainly based on the review of existing methods and ends up with recommendations for improvements in RES data aggregation and statistical interpretation, taking into consideration the related analysis of statisticians, energy technology experts and energy socio-economists.     

Sustainability assessment of energy technologies via social indicators: Results of a survey among European energy experts

Sustainability assessment of energy technologies oftentimes fails to account for social repercussions and long-term negative effects and benefits of energy systems. As part of the NEEDS¹ project, an expert-based set of social indicators was developed and verified by the European stakeholders with the objective of contributing in the development of social indicators for the assessment of societal effects of energy systems. For this purpose, scientific experts from four sample countries France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland were interviewed to assess 16 different energy systems on a specific stakeholder reviewed indicator set. The indicator set covers the four main criteria: “security and reliability of energy provision; “political stability and legitimacy”; “social and individual risks” and “quality of life”. This article will review the process of indicator development and assessment and highlight results for today's most prominent and future energy technologies and some likely to make an impact in the future. Expert judgments varied considerably between countries and energy systems, with the exception of renewable technologies, which were overall positively assessed on almost all evaluation criteria.     

Future projection of the energy dependency of Turkey using artificial neural network

Energy dependency (ED) implies the extent to which an economy relies upon imports in order to meet its energy needs. The ED is calculated as net imports divided by the sum of gross inland energy consumption plus bunkers. This study aims at obtaining numerical equations to estimate of Turkey's energy dependency based on basic energy indicators and sectoral energy consumption by using artificial neural network (ANN) technique. It seeks to contribute to the strategies necessary to preserve the supply–demand balance of Turkey. For this purpose, two different models were used to train the ANN approach. In Model 1, main energy indicators such as total production of primary energy per capita, total gross electricity generation per capita and final energy consumption per capita were used in the input layer of the ANN while sectoral energy consumption per capita was used in Model 2.The ED was in the output layer for both models. Different models were employed to estimate the ED with a high confidence for future projections. The R² values of ED were found to be 0.999 for both models. In accordance with the analysis results, ED is expected to increase from 72% to 82% within 14 years of period. Consequently, the utilization of renewable energy sources and nuclear energy is strictly recommended to ensure the ED stability in Turkey.     

Structure model of energy efficiency indicators and applications

For the purposes of energy conservation and environmental protection, the government of Taiwan has instigated long-term policies to continuously encourage and assist industry in improving the efficiency of energy utilization. While multiple actions have led to practical energy saving to a limited extent, no strong evidence of improvement in energy efficiency was observed from the energy efficiency indicators (EEI) system, according to the annual national energy statistics and survey. A structural analysis of EEI is needed in order to understand the role that energy efficiency plays in the EEI system.