Study on electrical energy and prospective electricity generation from renewable sources in Australia

Nowadays renewable sources are being used as clean sources to generate electricity and to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. The uses of renewable sources are being increased in electricity generation and contributed to reduce the greenhouse gas emission. The function of any electrical power system is to connect everyone sufficiently, clean electric power anywhere and anytime of the country. This can be achieved through a modern power system by integrating electrical energy from clean renewable sources into the nation's electric grid to enhance reliability, efficiency and security of the power system. The paper on the status of review the driving force of the generation of renewable energy and proposing electrical energy generation from renewable sources to be ensured at least 20% of total energy of Australia. This paper has been studied the existing electricity generation capacity of Australia from renewable and non-renewable sources. Optimal electricity generation from renewable sources has been examined. The environmental impact of electricity generation from renewable sources has been considered. Under this paper the yearly average wind data of past 20 years and above for some meteorological stations of Australia have been used. The prospective electricity generation from wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels has been proposed in the paper that will increase electrical energy of the power grid of Australia. It was estimated the capital cost of prospective electricity generation farms from wind and solar PV sources.     

Spanish energy roadmap to 2020: Socioeconomic implications of renewable targets

The European Union has established challenging targets for the share of renewable energies to be achieved by 2020; for Spain, 20% of the final energy consumption must be from renewable sources at such time. The aim of this paper is the analysis of the consequences for the electricity sector (in terms of excess cost of electricity, investment requirements, land occupation, CO₂ emissions and overcapacity of conventional power) of several possibilities to comply with the desired targets. Scenarios are created from different hypotheses for energy demand, biofuel share in final energy in transport, contribution of renewables for heating and cooling, renewable electricity generation (generation mix, deployment rate, learning curves, land availability) and conventional power generation (lifetime of current installations, committed deployment, fossil fuel costs and CO₂ emissions cost). A key input in the estimations presented is the technical potential and the cost of electricity from renewable sources, which have been estimated in previous, detailed studies by the present authors using a methodology based on a GIS (Geographical Information System) and high resolution meteorological data. Depending on the scenario, the attainment of the targets will lead to an increase in the cost of electricity from 19% to 37% with respect to 2007.     

Stochastic security-constrained operation of wind and hydrogen energy storage systems integrated with price-based demand response

Because of highly increasing energy consumption, environmental issues and lack of common energy sources, the use of renewable energy sources especially wind power generation technology is increasing with significant growth in the world. But due to the variable nature of these sources, new challenges have been created in the balance between production and consumption of power system. The hydrogen energy storage (HES) system by storing excess wind power through the technology of power to hydrogen (P2H) and delivering it to the electricity network through hydrogen-based gas turbine at the required hours reduces not only wind alternation but can play an important role in balancing power production and consumption. On the other hand, power consumers by participating in demand response (DR) programs can reduce their consumption at peak load or wind power shortage hours, and increase their consumption at low-load or excess wind power hours to reduce wind power spillage and system energy cost. This paper proposes a stochastic security constrained unit commitment (SCUC) with wind energy considering coordinated operation of price-based DR and HES system. Price-based DR has been formulated as a price responsive shiftable demand bidding mechanism. The proposed model has been tested on modified 6-bus and 24-bus systems. The numerical results show the effect of simultaneous consideration of HES system and price-based DR integrated with wind energy on hourly generation scheduling of thermal units. As a result there is some reduction in wind generation power spillage and daily operation cost.     

Hydropower Systems and Hydropower Potential in the European Union Countries

Hydropower is today the most important kind of renewable and sustainable energy. Resources of hydropower are widely spread around the world. Hydro energy is the most reliable and cost effective renewable energy source. It is obvious that among all the renewable energies, hydropower occupies the place in the world, and it will keep this place for many years to come. Hydroelectric energy is responsible worldwide for some 2600 TWh of electricity output per year, which means about 20% of the world's entire electricity demand, making it one of the most reliable and cost effective renewable energy sources. In 2001, the largest hydropower generating countries were Canada (333.0 TWh), the United States (201.2 TWh) and Norway (120.4 TWh). Hydroelectric power consumption in the EU grew by nearly 27% between 1991 and 2001. In 2001, hydro accounted for approximately 5% of total EU power consumption. France is the EU's largest producer of hydroelectricity. In 2001, generation capacity of hydropower was about 25,000 MW in France.     

A review on the pattern of electricity generation and emission in Indonesia from 1987 to 2009

The level of energy demand plays a fundamental role in today's society. It is a vital input in supporting the physical and social development of a country, as well as national economic growth. Looking at the energy demand scenario in present time, the global energy consumption is likely to grow faster than the population growth across the world. Like any other energy sectors, electricity demand has significantly increased in Indonesia over the past years. Currently, there are six types of power plants in the country. The main sources of electrical energy are generated using the gas turbines, steam turbines, combined cycles, geothermal, diesel engine and hydro-powers. Most of Indonesia's power plants are using fossil fuel for electricity generation. Substantial growth in domestic energy demand, however, would be a major challenge for Indonesia's energy supply sector in the future. Over the past decade, thermal power plants generated about 86.69% of electricity and about 13.31% was generated by renewable energy such as hydro-power and geothermal in 2009. The purpose of this study is to chronicle and show a clear view of 23 years trend of Indonesia's electricity generation industry. Furthermore, the capacity of power generation installed and electricity generation from 1987 to 2009 has been gathered for this study. The total pollutant emissions and emission per unit electricity generation for each type of power plants have been also calculated using emission factors. Also, the pattern of electricity generation and emission has been presented. The results show that the implementation and contribution of combined cycle power plants should be increased together with renewable energy and natural gas which are recommended to reduce greenhouse gas emission.     

Incentives and disincentives for using renewable energy: Turkish students’ ideas

A closed-form questionnaire was used to explore the prevalence of ideas of Turkish school students in years 7 and 8 (age 13–14 years) about renewable power generation. The questionnaire investigated students’ ideas about the characteristics of renewable energy, its perceived advantages and disadvantgaes, and, separately, their views about the importance of the characteristics of energy production; it is likely that a combination of such beliefs could act as incentives or disincentives to the acceptability of renewable power. In terms of cost, about half of the students thought that it is cheaper to generate electricity from renewable sources, and only a quarter thought that renewable power generators would be expensive to dismantle at the end of their working life. There were some concerns about safety; although half of the students thought that renewable power installations were safer than other types of power generators, over half thought that renewable power generators could in some way harm plants, animals or humans that lived nearby. In terms of the capacity of renewable electricity generation, nearly two-third of the students thought that such sources could provide sufficient power for the population, and a similar proportion thought that electricity from renewable sources would be available continuously. Only about half of the students appreciated the contribution that renewable sources could make to a reduction in global warming, and more than half thought that such generators would in fact create environmental problems. Most of the characteristics mentioned were regarded as important, although the cost of electricity appeared less so to these particular students. When the responses about believed characteristics and views about their importance were combined, it appeared that the belief that renewable power could produce a reliable supply of electricity and, encouragingly, that it could contribute to a reduction in global warming, would be persuasive arguments for its implementation.     

Design for renewable energy systems with application to rural areas in Japan

This study uses optimization modeling to study efficient ways to integrate renewable energy systems to provide electricity and heat in rural Japan. The model provides minimum cost system configuration and operation taking into account hour-by-hour energy availability and demand. Grid electricity is available to rural areas of Japan, but it is relatively expensive. Local renewable energy generation can be economic while using grid electricity to compensate for the intermittency of the renewable generation. In the model, renewable electricity can be provided by a combination of wind, photovoltaic, and biomass. Heat can be provided by petroleum, LPG, and geothermal heat pumps (GHPs). We find that due to the relatively high cost of grid electricity, there is significant penetration of wind generation. In turn, the penetration of wind creates economic conditions that encourage GHP penetration. The integrated renewable system reduces the annual cost of the entire system by 31%, and reduces the carbon emissions by 50%.     

Impact of electric vehicles on a future renewable energy‐based power system in Europe with a focus on Germany

Electric mobility is expected to play a key role in the decarbonisation of the energy system. Continued development of battery electric vehicles is fundamental to achieving major reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels and of CO₂ emissions in the transport sector. Hydrogen can become an important complementary synthetic fuel providing electric vehicles with longer ranges. However, the environmental benefit of electric vehicles is significant only if their additional electricity consumption is covered by power production from renewable energy sources. Analysing the implications of different scenarios of electric vehicles and renewable power generation considering their spatial and temporal characteristics, we investigate possible effects of electric mobility on the future power system in Germany and Europe. The time horizon of the scenario study is 2050. The approach is based on power system modelling that includes interchange of electricity between European regions, which allows assessing long‐term structural effects in energy systems with over 80% of renewable power generation. The study exhibits strong potential of controlled charging and flexible hydrogen production infrastructure to avoid peak demand increases and to reduce the curtailment of renewable power resulting in reduced system operation, generation, and network expansion costs. A charging strategy that is optimised from a systems perspective avoids in our scenarios 3.5 to 4.5 GW of the residual peak load in Germany and leads to efficiency gains of 10% of the electricity demand of plug‐in electric vehicles compared with uncontrolled loading.     

Time of day pricing and the levelized cost of intermittent power generation

An important characteristic of most renewable energy sources is intermittency in their ability to generate electricity. Yet, intermittency is usually ignored in life-cycle cost calculations intended to assess the competitiveness of electric power from renewable as opposed to dispatchable energy sources, such as fossil fuels. This paper demonstrates that for intermittent renewable power sources a traditional life-cycle cost calculation should be appended by a correction factor which we term the Co-Variation coefficient. It captures any synergies, or complementarities, between the time-varying patterns of electricity generation and pricing. We estimate the Co-Variation coefficient for specific settings in the western United States. Our estimates imply that the benchmark of cost competitiveness for solar photovoltaic (PV) power is 10 to 15% lower than previous average life-cycle cost analyses have suggested. In contrast, the generation pattern of wind power exhibits complementarities with electricity pricing schedules, yielding a cost assessment that is higher than that suggested by traditional calculations. For the specific settings we study, the corresponding magnitude of the markup is 10 to 15%.     

Electricity generation from renewable energy sources in Germany — Potentials, costs and implementation strategies

The objective of this paper is to analyse the technical potentials and the costs of renewable energy sources for electricity generation in Germany and to define and discuss possible strategies for a largescale implementation of such renewable sources into the German power generation system. Four renewable options are discussed: hydropower, windtechnical and photovoltaic electricity generation and the possible electricity production of biomass. First the technical potentials are identified for the present and future reference years. Then the specific costs are analysed, as well for the present and the future. Finally an exemplary implementation strategy is defined and discussed leading to a total renewable electricity generation in the year 2020 of about 86 TWh/a which would be a share of about 19 % of the total present electrical energy demand.     

Model‐based approach for planning renewable energy transition in a resource‐constrained electricity system—A case study from India

Globally, electricity systems are going through transitions. The contributions from renewable energy‐based power generation, both in installed capacity and electricity generation, are moving from marginal to the mainstream. India is not an exception; it is aggressively pursuing this transition by fixing steep targets for renewable capacity additions. While the cost of renewable energy sources is expected to fast reach grid parity, the policy interventions play a critical role in ramping up the efforts to support the proposed investments in renewable capacity and renewable electricity generation. In this respect, this research attempts to analyze the effectiveness of renewable energy policies such as Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) and Renewable Energy Certificate mechanisms in tapping the renewable energy potential in India. We propose a mixed‐integer linear programming model‐based approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the above interventions in the Indian context. The model is developed and validated as a low carbon electricity planning tool to optimally meet the dynamic electricity demand and RPO targets as well as to manage the unmet total electricity demand and RPO targets. The Karnataka state electricity system (a state in south India) is chosen as a case study. The results suggest that Karnataka Electricity System is moving toward a sustainable renewable energy future even without any support from nonsolar Renewable Energy Certificate policy. However, policy interventions are critical for optimally utilizing the solar generation capacity.     

考虑多弹性资源调峰成本的可再生能源开发协同优化模型

中国制定了2030年和2060年的碳排放目标.可再生能源,主要是风能和光伏发电,被认为是未来的发电方式.新能源发展的主要制约因素是电力系统资源监管灵活性有限,导致消费能力不足.因此需要考虑调峰灵活的资源成本以及区域可再生能源的合理协调开发和运行优化.本研究考虑了电力系统综合成本,综合分析电力系统各种弹性调节资源潜力及其...     

A conceptual chemical looping combustion power system design in a power-to-gas energy storage scenario

Increasing global energy demand and the continued reliance on non-renewable energy sources, especially in developing countries, will cause continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions unless alternative electricity generation methods are employed. Although renewable energy sources can provide a clean way to produce electricity, the intermittent nature of many existing renewable energy sources, such as energy from the wind or sun, can cause instability in the energy balance. Energy storage systems such as power-to-gas may provide a clean and efficient way to store the overproduced electricity. In this work, a power-to-gas energy storage system coupled with a chemical looping combustion combined-cycle power generation system is proposed to provide base and intermediate load power from the unused electricity from the grid. Enhanced process integration was employed to achieve optimal heat and exergy recovery. The simulation results using ASPEN Plus V8.8 suggest that electric power generation with an overall energy efficiency of 56% can be achieved by using a methane chemical looping combustion power generation process with additional hydrogen produced from a solid oxide electrolysis cell. The proposed system was also evaluated to further improve the system's total energy efficiency by changing the key operating parameters.     

Distributed generation integrated with thermal unit commitment considering demand response for energy storage optimization of smart grid

This paper deals with an optimal battery energy storage capacity for the smart grid operation. Distributed renewable generator and conventional thermal generator are considered as the power generation sources for the smart grid. Usually, a battery energy storage system (BESS) is used to satisfy the transmission constraints but installation cost of battery energy storage is very high. Sometimes, it is not possible to install a large capacity of the BESS. On the other hand, the competition of the electricity market has been increased due to the deregulation and liberalization of the power market. Therefore, the power companies are required to reduce the generation cost in order to maximize the profit. In this paper, a thermal units commitment program considers the demand response system to satisfy the transmission constraints. The BESS capacity can be reduced by the demand response system. The electric vehicle (EV) and heat pump (HP) in the smart house are considered as the controllable loads of the demand side. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by extensive simulation results which ensure the reduction of BESS capacity and power generation cost, and satisfy the transmission constraints.     

Funding renewable energy: An analysis of renewable portfolio standards

Thirty states have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) that set targets for renewable energy generation by mandating that electric power utilities obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable sources. Our synthetic control (SC) model finds that states with RPSs have experienced increases in electricity prices and decreases in electricity demand relative to non-RPS states with similar economic, political and renewable natural resource characteristics. While both RPS and non-RPS SCs experienced increases in renewable energy generation over the sample time period, we do not find evidence that RPS states have experienced increases in renewable energy generation relative to SCs and weak evidence of emissions reductions.     

Potential of renewable energy in electrical energy production and sustainable energy development of Turkey: Performance and policies

Generating electricity, from renewable energy sources has become a high priority in the energy policy strategies at a national level as well as on a global scale. Although Turkey has many energy resources only coal and hydropower are significant at present, and as demand had risen, it has been necessary to import fuels to meet the total energy demand. The fossil resources, both indigenous and imported, have become expensive and also have undesirably high emissions. Turkey has an extensive shoreline and mountains and is rich in renewable energy potential. The share of renewables on total electricity generation is 35% while that of thermal power is 65% for the year 2010. Turkey is one of those countries that are considered rich and abundant in renewable energy resources.Turkey is facing serious challenges in satisfying its growing energy demand. To fuel a rapidly growing economy, the country’s electricity consumption is increasing by an average of 8–9% every year, and significant investments are needed in generation, transmission and distribution facilities to balance the power system’s supply and demand. With very limited oil and gas reserves, Turkey is increasingly turning to renewable energy sources as a means to improve its energy security and curb dependence on imported gas from Russia and Iran. This paper investigates the potential of renewable energy resources in Turkey at present and the magnitude of their present and future contributions to the national energy consumption. Energy politics are also considered.     

A review on the pattern of electricity generation and emission in Iran from 1967 to 2008

The electricity consumption growth in Iran requires a rapid development of power plant construction. Like many other countries, most of the power plants in Iran are using fossil fuel. In the past decade, thermal power plants generated about 94% of electricity and about 6% was generated by renewable sources such as hydro-power. This study is to show a clear view of 42 years an evolutionary trend of Iran's electricity generation industry. The capacity of power generation installed and electricity generation from the years 1967 to 2008 has been gathered. The total pollutant emissions and emission per unit electricity generation for each type of power plants have also been calculated using emission factors and the pattern of electricity generation and emission has been presented. The results shown that encouraging of using renewable energy sources and increasing the contribution of the combined cycle as a best type of thermal power plants and use more natural gas is recommended to reduce emission.     

An optimal electricity allocation model for sustainable resource use in India

Energy demand is increasing rapidly because of developments in the agricultural, industrial, commercial and transportation sectors. Improved lifestyle and population rise are other reasons for the increase in energy demand. The development of an electricity allocation model will help in the proper allocation of the energy sources to meet the future electricity demand in India. In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop a fuzzy‐based linear programming, optimal electricity allocation model (OEAM) that minimizes the cost and determines the optimum allocation of different energy sources to the centralized and decentralized power generation in India. The potential of energy sources, energy demand, efficiency of the energy systems, emission released by the energy systems and carbon tax for the emissions released by each system are the main factors that influence the pattern of electricity distribution and are used as constraints in the model. Executing this model results in an optimal electricity distribution pattern. The results indicate that the commercial energy sources such as coal, nuclear and hydro would meet nearly 68% of total electricity demand and that the remaining 32% of the electricity demand will be met by the renewable energy sources, namely, wind, biomass, biogas, solid waste, cogeneration and mini hydel for the year 2020. Various scenarios are also developed by varying the demand, potential, emission and carbon tax. This study will help in the formation of strategies for effective utilization of energy sources in India. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Representation of variable renewable energy sources in TIMER,an aggregated energy system simulation model

The power system is expected to play an important role in climate change mitigation. Variable renewable energy (VRE) sources, such as wind and solar power, are currently showing rapid growth rates in power systems worldwide, and could also be important in future mitigation strategies. It is therefore important that the electricity sector and the integration of VRE are correctly represented in energy models. This paper presents an improved methodology for representing the electricity sector in the long-term energy simulation model TIMER using a heuristic approach to find cost optimal paths given system requirements and scenario assumptions. Regional residual load duration curves have been included to simulate curtailments, storage use, backup requirements and system load factor decline as the VRE share increases. The results show that for the USA and Western Europe at lower VRE penetration levels, backup costs form the major VRE cost markup. When solar power supplies more than 30% of the electricity demand, the costs of storage and energy curtailments become increasingly important. Storage and curtailments have less influence on wind power cost markups in these regions, as wind power supply is better correlated with electricity demand. Mitigation scenarios show an increasing VRE share in the electricity mix implying also increasing contribution of VRE for peak and mid load capacity. In the current scenarios, this can be achieved by at the same time installing less capital intensive gas fired power plants. Sensitivity analysis showed that greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector in the updated model are particularly sensitive to the availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear power and the costs of VRE.     

Using renewables to hedge against future electricity industry uncertainties—An Australian case study

A generation portfolio modelling was employed to assess the expected costs, cost risk and emissions of different generation portfolios in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) under highly uncertain gas prices, carbon pricing policy and electricity demand. Outcomes were modelled for 396 possible generation portfolios, each with 10,000 simulations of possible fuel and carbon prices and electricity demands. In 2030, the lowest expected cost generation portfolio includes 60% renewable energy. Increasing the renewable proportion to 75% slightly increased expected cost (by $0.2/MWh), but significantly decreased the standard deviation of cost (representing the cost risk). Increasing the renewable proportion from the present 15% to 75% by 2030 is found to decrease expected wholesale electricity costs by $17/MWh. Fossil-fuel intensive portfolios have substantial cost risk associated with high uncertainty in future gas and carbon prices. Renewables can effectively mitigate cost risk associated with gas and carbon price uncertainty. This is found to be robust to a wide range of carbon pricing assumptions. This modelling suggests that policy mechanisms to promote an increase in renewable generation towards a level of 75% by 2030 would minimise costs to consumers, and mitigate the risk of extreme electricity prices due to uncertain gas and carbon prices.