The strategic environmental impact assessment of electric wind energy plants: Case study ‘Bavani?te’ (Serbia)

This study presents a methodology of strategic environmental impact assessment that was applied in the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the Urban Plan for wind power plants in Bavani?te (Serbia). It deals with the experience in the making of urban planning documentation for the first wind power plant in Serbia from the aspect of possible environmental conflicts related to the utilization of alternative energy sources – preservation of natural resources. SEA is one of the most important instruments for the implementation of the sustainable development strategy in planning. By applying SEA in planning, it is possible to realize the spatial consequences of the proposed changes in space, considering the needs of subject location. Although the general methodology and procedures of SEA design and its adoption, as well as the content of SEA report are defined by the legislation of the European countries, there is no universal methodology for environmental impact assessment study plans. Specific environmental impacts of certain plans require a global perception of planning solutions in the context of realizing the aims of sustainable development.     

A model for representing the Italian energy system: The NEEDS-TIMES experience

Sustainability of energy systems has a strategic role in the current energy-environmental policies as it involves key issues such as security of energy supply, mitigation of environmental impact (with special regard to air quality improvement) and energy affordability. In this framework modelling activities are more than ever a strategic issue in order to manage the large complexity of energy systems as well as to support the decision-making process at different stages and spatial scales (regional, national, Pan-European, etc.). The aim of this article is to present a new model for the Italian energy system implemented with a common effort in the framework of an integrated project under the Sixth Framework Programme. In particular, the main features of the common methodology are briefly recalled and the modelling structure, the main data and assumptions, sector by sector, are presented. Moreover the main results obtained for the baseline (BAU) scenario are fully described.     

Sustainability assessment of cogeneration sector development in Croatia

The effective and rational energy generation and supply is one of the main presumptions of sustainable development. Combined heat and power production, or co-generation, has clear environmental advantages by increasing energy efficiency and decreasing carbon emissions. However, higher investment cost and more complicated design and maintenance sometimes-present disadvantages from the economical viability point of view. As in the case of most of economies in transition in Central and Eastern Europe, Croatia has a strong but not very efficient co-generation sector, delivering 12% of the final energy consumption. District heating systems in the country's capital Zagreb and in city of Osijek represent the large share of the overall co-generation capacity. Besides district heating, co-generation in industry sector is also relatively well developed. The paper presents an attempt to assess the sustainability of Croatian co-generation sector future development. The sustainability assessment requires multi-criteria assessment of specific scenarios to be taken into consideration. In this respect three scenarios of Croatian co-generation sector future development are taken into consideration and for each of them environmental, social and economic sustainability indicators are defined and calculated. The assessment of complex relationships between environmental, social and economic aspects of the system is based on the multi-criteria decision-making procedure. The sustainability assessment is based on the General Sustainability Index rating for different cases reflecting different criteria and their priority. The method of sustainability assessment is applied to the Croatian co-generation sector contributing to the evaluation of different strategies and definition of a foundation for policy related to the sustainable future cogeneration sector development.     

Integrated energy strategy for the sustainable development of China

We propose in this paper an integrated energy strategy based on a systems approach to address the energy challenges and energy dilemma in China. First, we give a review of existing approaches to energy planning and strategic management, followed by a discussion on the major relationships among energy, economical, environmental and societal systems. Next, we present a conceptual system model with alternative solutions and clarify corresponding concepts. Based on the results, we propose, summarize, and present strategic ideas as policy implications for China’s decision makers. In conclusion, we determine that China should enhance strategic planning and regulation from a life cycle viewpoint of the whole society, prioritize energy saving, continuously improve incumbent energy, and rationally develop alternative energy.     

Proposal for a combined methodology for renewable energy planning. Application to a Spanish region

The article here presented aims to contribute to renewable energies development at regional level, proposing a methodology for the establishment of strategies needed to reach, in the long term, an energy system more sustainable and mainly based upon autochthonous resources.Current energy planning models are investigated, analysing its convenience to design a sustainable energy system, and a new methodology, that combines three different approaches, is proposed. Such new “hybrid” methodology resumes advantages of territorial strategic planning methods, based upon SWOT analysis, along with characteristics extracted both from Multicriteria decision analysis techniques and expert opinion “Delphi” methods.Nowadays, decisions concerning energy system cannot be consider under one specific criterion. Different implications, energetic, environmental or socioeconomic, derived from changes on energy development make it unavoidable to use tools and techniques that could take into account such multiplicity. It has been also intended to take advantage of the know-how acquired along the territorial strategic planning process carried out in the region to analyse, from year 1997 to 2000. This approach has allowed to integrate, under a unique methodology, tools from energy planning with those one used, and successfully tested, for the elaboration of the strategic plan for Jaén Province.The proposed methodology has been applied to Jaén Province in order to design a renewable energy plan for the region, setting strategic action lines and fixing strategic goals to be met on year 2010 by the provincial energy system. The objective regarding electricity production from renewable resources, on year 2010, is fixed above 1630 GWh, which represents a 43% of the total foreseeable electricity consumption. Overall contribution of renewable sources in provincial energy system is finally set to 28.3%, in terms of final energy.     

Integration between environmental management and strategic planning in the oil and gas sector

For activities that have a high possibility of causing environmental accidents, like in the oil and gas sector, it is reasonable to expect the environmental management to be an important variable within the company's strategic planning. However, this is not always true. In some cases, a change in the companies’ attitude, abandoning a reactive position and assuming a proactive one, only happens upon the occurrence of serious environmental accidents with strong repercussion in the media. For the company that was the object of study, these accidents gave rise to deep changes in its environmental management, culminating in investments of approximately US$ 2.6 billion in environment, health and security, from 2000 to 2004. This was the highest amount to date invested on these areas by an oil company.     

Regional energy planning through SWOT analysis and strategic planning tools.: Impact on renewables development

Strategic planning processes, which are commonly used as a tool for region development and territorial structuring, can be harnessed by politicians and public administrations, at the local level, to redesign the regional energy system and encourage renewable energy development and environmental preservation. In this sense, the province of Jaén, a southern Spanish region whose economy is mainly based on olive agriculture, has carried out its strategic plan aiming at a major socioeconomic development. Under the leadership of the provincial government and the University of Jaén, main provincial institutions joined to propose the elaboration of a participatory strategic plan for the whole province. Here, the elaboration of the energy part of the plan, which was directly focused on the exploitation of renewable resources, mainly solar and biomass energy, and which highlights the effectiveness of techniques from business management applied to a sustainable energy model design is presented. Renewable Energy development during the first years of plan execution is presented, and the impact of additional issues is discussed. It is concluded that, although multicriteria decision-making technologies (MCDA) are extensively used in energy planning, a different approach can be utilized to incorporate techniques from strategic analysis. Furthermore, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis has proved to be an effective tool and has constituted a suitable baseline to diagnose current problems and to sketch future action lines.     

Centralisation and decentralisation in strategic municipal energy planning in Denmark

Denmark's future energy system is to be entirely based on renewable energy sources. Municipalities will play an important role as local energy planning authorities in terms of adopting and refining this vision in different local contexts. Based on a review of 11 municipal energy plans, this paper examines to what extent municipal energy planning matches national 100% renewable energy strategies. The results indicate a willingness among Danish municipalities to actively carry out energy planning, and the plans reveal a large diversity of (new) activities. At the same time, however, there is a strong need for better coordination of municipal energy planning activities at the central level. It is suggested that the role of municipalities as energy planning authorities needs to be outlined more clearly in, e.g., strategic energy planning which integrates savings, efficiency and renewable energy in all (energy) sectors. This requires the state to provide municipalities with the necessary planning instruments and establish a corresponding planning framework. Consequently, there is a need for a simultaneous centralisation and decentralisation during the implementation of the 100% renewable energy vision. The paper outlines a basic division of tasks between the central and the local level within such a strategic energy planning system.     

An empirical approach for ranking environmental and energy saving measures in the hotel sector

The energy demand of the hotel sector of an Italian region is here utilized for hierarchizing, by means of an empirical method, efficient measures devoted to energy saving and reduction of CO₂ emissions.Due to the large number of consumers present in the selected territorial area and the lack in detailed data, the energy demand assessment is here carried out by the analysis of a sample of representative consumers.A short set of indexes, referring to energy and environmental performances, are defined and calculated for different clusters of hotels, grouped on the basis of site characteristics, opening periods, number of beds, and building age. Such indexes are utilized to establish lists of actions with assigned priorities stemming from energy, environmental and economics issues.Energy planners and decision makers can easily use this approach for defining, implementing and monitoring energy efficiency as well as sustainability policies in the tourist sector of a given geographical area, starting from a limited set of data. The method has been proposed by authors within the assessment of the Sicilian Energy Masterplan.     

Challenges to China's transition to a low carbon electricity system

We examine the challenges to China's transition to a low carbon electricity system, in which renewable energy would play a significant role. China's electricity system currently lacks the flexibility in planning, operations, and pricing to respond to conflicting pressures from demand growth, rising costs, and environmental mandates in a way that simultaneously maintains reliability, decarbonizes the system, and keeps prices within acceptable bounds. Greater flexibility crucially requires the ability to more systematically and transparently manage and allocate costs. This will require re-orientating sector institutions still rooted in central planning, and strengthening independent regulation. Some of the necessary changes require fundamental political and legal reforms beyond the scope of energy policy. However, the system's flexibility can still be increased through the development of traditional planning and regulatory tools and approaches, such as an avoided cost basis for energy efficiency investments, more integrated planning to improve the coordination of generation, transmission, and demand-side investments, and a transparent ratemaking process. The judicious application of OECD electricity sector experience and skills can support these developments.     

Development of an interval multi‐stage stochastic programming model for regional energy systems planning and GHG emission control under uncertainty

A regional energy system consists of diverse forms of energy. Energy‐related issues such as utilization of renewable energy and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission are confronting decision makers. Meanwhile, various uncertainties and dynamics of the energy system are posing difficulties for the energy system planning, especially for those under multiple stages. In this study, an interval multi‐stage stochastic programming regional energy systems planning model (IMSP‐REM) was developed to support regional energy systems management and GHG control under uncertainty. The IMSP‐REM is a hybrid methodology of inexact optimization and multi‐stage stochastic programming. Not only can it handle uncertainties presented as intervals and probability density functions but also reflect dynamics of system conditions over multiple planning stages. The developed IMSP‐REM was applied to a hypothetical regional energy system. The results indicate that the IMSP‐REM can effectively reflect issues of GHG reduction and renewable energy utilization within an energy system planning framework. In addition, the model has advantages in incorporating multiple uncertainties and dynamics within energy management systems. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of cool storage air-conditioning in the commercial sector: an integrated resource planning approach for power capacity expansion planning and emission reduction

An assessment is presented of the evaluation of the application of cool storage air-conditioning (CSA) in the commercial sector as a resource in the electricity generation expansion planning. The resultant impacts of analysis of emission costs on annual emissions from power generation are also discussed. A building energy simulation tool is used for assessment of potential savings and peak load shifting of CSA application in commercial buildings. In this study, an integrated resource planning (IRP) model is used to evaluate the economic effectiveness of the CSA option. The IRP analysis with emission costs results in deferring the installation of four units of 1000-MW coal-fired power plant from 2010 to 2011, and one unit of 1000-MW coal-fired power plant and one 200-MW CSA option are removed from the IRP plan. Results show that the CSA option is a viable resource in the least-cost planning and reducing environmental emissions.     

“十二五”节能服务产业发展前景与趋势

《国务院关于加快培育和发展战略性新兴产业的决定》明确宣布国家将重点培育和发展节能环保产业等七大战略性新兴产业,而节能服务产业属于节能环保产业范畴,被寄予引领整个节能环保产业发展的厚望。加快推行合同能源管理、加快发展节能服务产业是"十二五"加快经济转型的战略选择和迫切要求。我国现有的节能服务产业发展支持政策可归结为法律法规支持、行政规章支持、专项财政支持以及规划引导和工程推动等4类,这些政策的制定和施行为"十二五"期间我国节能服务产业的快速发展营造了较好的政策环境。"十二五"期间,我国节能服务市场需求的驱动力来自市场驱动和政策驱动两个方面,全社会对节能服务的市场需求巨大。届时节能服务公司数量将经历一个先增后减的过程,"十二五"后期全国公司数量将为1500家左右,有大型企业背景的节能服务公司可能带来不公平竞争,跨国公司或将成为我国节能服务市场重要的竞争参与者;节能服务市场的开发将主要集中在工业领域,同时在建筑领域业务活动将有所加强,东、中、西部节能服务市场开发的差距将缩小,节能服务市场将进一步细分。     

Energy efficiency in energy-intensive industries—an evaluation of the Swedish voluntary agreement PFE

In this paper, we evaluate the Swedish Programme for improving energy efficiency in energy-intensive industries (PFE). Since 2005, some 100 energy-intensive companies have entered this 5-year voluntary agreement (VA) and been exempted from the EU minimum tax on electricity. In return, each company is required to: conduct an energy audit and analysis; identify and invest in profitable electricity saving measures; implement and certify an energy management system; introduce routines for energy efficient procurement and project planning. For most participants the first programme period was completed in 2009 and available data enables this PFE ex-post evaluation. An impact evaluation compiles and analyse data that the companies have reported to the administrating agency, the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA). This assessment of quantifiable results is complemented by a process-oriented approach that combines studies of policy documents, previous evaluations and personal communication with administrators as well as companies. The bottom-up calculation method distinguishes between gross and net impact. While the SEA estimates a gross impact of 1,450 GW h/year, the net impact consists of an interval between 689 and 1,015 GW h of net annual electricity savings. PFE has effectively and, to a low cost, exceeded the estimated impact of a minimum tax and can thus be judged as successful. A comprehensive evaluation plan could facilitate relevant data gathering in PFE and similar VAs and could, in doing so, improve accuracy and possibly reduce evaluation cost. Such a plan should give weight also to the organisational changes, with potential long-lasting effects, that these programmes are capable of promoting.     

Impact of CO2 reduction policies on the development of renewable energy sources

The paper examines the impact of CO₂ reduction policies on the strategic planning of the energy sector. Attention is paid to the conflicts between economic and environmental goals influencing the penetration of renewable energy sources (RES). A linear programming (LP) model is applied to represent the structure of the Greek energy system. Energy flows are optimized with respect to the system's economic efficiency. The model incorporates a constraint concerning the CO₂ emissions generated from the various energy production and consumption activities. The results show that a substantial reduction of CO₂ emissions can be achieved through a large scale integration of RES into the energy system. Shadow prices identified by the model denote the real cost for the economy of using alternative energy forms under various environmental restrictions. They are useful to indicate the changes in the prevailing pricing mechanisms that are necessary to direct the market forces towards the desired policy goals.     

Paradigm shift in urban energy systems through distributed generation: Methods and models

The path towards energy sustainability is commonly referred to the incremental adoption of available technologies, practices and policies that may help to decrease the environmental impact of energy sector, while providing an adequate standard of energy services. The evaluation of trade-offs among technologies, practices and policies for the mitigation of environmental problems related to energy resources depletion requires a deep knowledge of the local and global effects of the proposed solutions. While attempting to calculate such effects for a large complex system like a city, an advanced multidisciplinary approach is needed to overcome difficulties in modeling correctly real phenomena while maintaining computational transparency, reliability, interoperability and efficiency across different levels of analysis. Further, a methodology that rationally integrates different computational models and techniques is necessary to enable collaborative research in the field of optimization of energy efficiency strategies and integration of renewable energy systems in urban areas. For these reasons, a selection of currently available models for distributed generation planning and design is presented and analyzed in the perspective of gathering their capabilities in an optimization framework to support a paradigm shift in urban energy systems. This framework embodies the main concepts of a local energy management system and adopts a multicriteria perspective to determine optimal solutions for providing energy services through distributed generation.     

我国能源发展战略演变及其效果评述

目前我国能源发展战略基本形成以国家能源战略、能源中长期规划纲要以及能源五年计划三个层次为主的能源战略体系和以规划为主导、相关政策和文件为辅助的政策体系。2000年以来,能源发展战略历经了以结构调整为重点、以节约能源为重点以及之后结构调整和区域协调并重三个阶段。由于缺乏国家综合能源战略,政策执行力弱,导致能源决策和规划思想相对滞后、发展思路相对狭隘。就此提出了我国能源战略管理体系的设想与建议。     

Planning municipal-scale energy systems under functional interval uncertainties

An interval-parameter chanced-constrained full-infinite mixed-integer programming (ICFMP) approach is proposed for planning energy systems under functional interval uncertainties. ICFMP cannot only deal with crisp intervals, functional intervals, and probability distributions, but also support the assessment of the reliability of satisfying (or the risk of violating) systems constraints. ICFMP can also facilitate capacity expansion planning for energy production facilities within a multi-period and multi-option context. Then, a real case study of energy systems planning in Beijing is applied to illustrate the applicability of the ICFMP, with an objective of minimizing system cost and under constraints of resources availability and environmental regulations. Various energy policies are incorporated within the modeling formulation, which can enhance the ICFMP’s capability for planning municipal energy systems. The ICFMP is transformed into two deterministic submodels that correspond to the lower and upper bounds for the desired objective function value. The results indicate that reasonable solutions for both binary and continuous variables have been generated under different levels of constraint-violation risk. The results are useful for making decisions of energy production and allocation as well as gaining insight into the tradeoffs between the system cost and the constraint-violation risk.     

Relative inequality in energy resource consumption: a case of Kanvashram village, Pauri Garhwal district, Uttranchall (India)

Energy planning exercises for rural areas make use of a mix of locally available renewable resources with some commercial resources to cater to the energy needs of the population. Such exercises are economically attractive in developing countries, whereby, the foreign exchange reserves for the purchase of commercial energy is curtailed. The first step in the implementation of an energy planning exercise is to understand the energy consumption and utilization habits of the population being served. Frequently, an assessment of the levels of inequality in the consumption of various resources is necessary as, this provides the rural planner with an understanding of the future trends and thus forearms him with strategic alternatives to combat any future energy resource crisis that the trends seem to imply.In the present paper, an attempt is made to assess the level of energy resource consumption inequality in a typical hilly rural Indian village. The Gini Coefficient of Inequality, a measure of inequality in the field of Econometrics has been applied for this assessment. The population is segregated into different categories based on their income levels and certain socio-economic criteria, which are also felt to exercise an influence on consumption levels of energy. The results of the analysis are then discussed in the light of the findings.     

A framework for evaluating the socioeconomic impacts of commercializing new energy technologies with an application to the on-site fuel cell energy system

In this paper, we present a general framework for assessing the societal impacts of new technologies. Such impacts can be broadly classified as economic development impacts, environmental impacts, and “other” societal impacts. We discuss the steps involved in a public sector cost-benefit analysis, starting with impact identification, and then proceeding to impact analysis, impact valuation, and ultimately to the determination of the net public sector benefits of the energy technology under study. This process is illustrated by applying it to the assessment of the dollar value of net potential benefits likely to accure to the public sector from commercialization of the on-site fuel energy system. Our analysis indicates that the potential benefits from dispersed deployment of the fuel cell make it a desirable source of energy, given the national energy priorities. Commercialization will result in substantial savings to consumers, in more efficient utilization of the nation's energy and non-energy resources, and in an ameliorative effect on the environment.