Clean Energy Targets Research Articles

‘Megalibraries’ of nanomaterials could speed clean energy and other grand challenge targets

‘Megalibraries’ of nanomaterials could speed clean energy and other grand challenge targets

The global climate action summit: increasing ambition during turbulent times

ABSTRACTIn September 2018, leaders in climate action within and outside the U.S. will convene in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit. They plan to demonstrate strong ongoing commitment to exceeding the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, despite U.S. federal opposition under President Trump, and to spur greater ambition among subnational governments and the private sector. Now that the Trump Administration is working to undo the progress made under President Obama, it is more important than ever that states and cities, as well as the private sector, redouble their efforts. Since the 2016 election, many U.S. states have demonstrated leadership by establishing ever-more ambitious clean energy and electric vehicle targets through legislation and executive action; by pushing back on the Trump Administration in public forums and in the courts; and by banding together to realise greater effectiveness through collective action. The commitment of leading states, cities, and businesses alone will not be enough to achieve the rapid reductions needed to keep planetary warming to 1.5 degrees C in the absence of U.S. federal efforts. But coming after a summer of extreme weather events, the Summit represents a critical opportunity to re-energise constituencies, highlight the need for urgent and ambitious action, and bring climate change to the forefront of policy conversations across the U.S. and beyond.Key policy insightsThe reversal of U.S. ambitious clean energy and transportation policy, including replacing the Clean Power Plan, freezing fuel standards, and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, have created a gap at the federal level under President Trump that will be difficult – but perhaps not impossible – to fill with subnational action.States, local governments, and the private sector have shown a strengthened commitment to combating climate change and to the goals set out in the Paris Agreement through more ambitious legislative and executive targets, and regional initiatives like RGGI and cross-jurisdictional zero emissions vehicle programmes.The Global Climate Action Summit in September 2018 is a pivotal moment to energise a broader coalition within and outside the U.S. towards catalysing the level of ambition needed to exceed goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Policy Options to Reduce Electricity Greenhouse Gas Emissions

AbstractThe design and effects of different schemes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and consumption of electricity are modelled. The tax scheme achieves the lowest cost per unit emission reduction because it encourages both businesses and consumers to reduce emissions, and the recycled windfall revenue can meet equity objectives. Comparing the Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS), Clean Energy Target (CET) and Renewable Energy Target (RET) schemes with common government revenue neutral and emissions reduction design outcomes, the EIS provides better incentives to generators to find the lower cost per unit emissions reduction.

Renewable Energy – A Tool to Lighten Up India

When the first bulb was invented by Edison, the dream was to make people free from holding petrol lamps, to give them a freedom to utilize night, to give players a chance to play in beautiful night with no worries of dawn. Gramjyoti yojna of Government of India also having same motives. India also need not only renewable energy, clean energy but high amount of energy. Still 70,000 villages are living in dark. Villagers and students have to sacrifice nights. Wind, hydro and solar energy are the key to clean renewable energy targets. Indo-china both the countries are fighting for development due to huge population inferences and the competition is neck to neck. launch of prime minister’s ambitious plan of “make in India” is showing glimpse of the courage and dream – solar trains, solar parks, solar lamps etc.., needs appropriate and with full facilities of infrastructure as well and energy as a major production component.. The Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission is a major initiative step for encouraging the production of solar energy. The Government of India and the State Governments promoting ecologically sustainable growth through renewable energy. It will help not only in fighting the challenges of climate change as well as helps in enlighten the life of rural India too. The positive possibilities of doing business in India and the growing interest of companies are noticeable in Business Claimant Survey 2015-16. Changes in the perception of companies in India providing stable, predictable business environment are steps to take. This paper discusses about cost of renewable energy, production technique, establishment knowhow, importance of solar energy (particularly for India), economic and environmental benefits, issues and prospects of solar energy and Governmental efforts

Bioenergy in Australia: Current Policies and Planning of the State and Federal Government

The world is now focusing more on bioenergy and its development. This paper discusses about the recent policies, incentives and steps taken by the State and Federal government of Australia on Bioenergy. The recent initiatives have improved and increased the use of bioenergy towards a clean renewable energy target for achieving a sustainable development towards the future generation.

Whose land is it anyway? Energy futures & land use in India

Modelling studies which project pathways for the future of energy in India currently have several implicit assumptions with regards to the social, institutional, and political changes necessary for energy transitions. This paper focuses on the specific question of land use change required for realising ambitious clean energy targets. Demand for land is likely to be a critical question in India's energy future given the challenges with land acquisition in the country as a result of high population density and significant rights enjoyed by landowners. Yet, there is a lack of literature relevant to India which makes a quantitative assessment of the land use impacts of different types of low carbon technologies. I calculate and compare the land requirements in India of ground based solar photovoltaic (PV) power, nuclear power, and wind energy. All three types of technologies are expected to grow substantially as a share of India's electricity mix in the coming years. The analysis suggests that land demands of ground based solar PV are likely to be substantial compared to wind energy and nuclear power, and some policy suggestions are provided which may help mitigate that challenge.

Australian panel calls for clean energy target to cut emissions

Australian panel calls for clean energy target to cut emissions

A long-term multi-region load-dispatch model based on grid structures for the optimal planning of China’s power sector

China's power sector has experienced rapid development over the past decade. With the clean energy targets and carbon mitigation objectives proposed by the government as well as rapid development of power transmission infrastructure, future potential pathways for the expansion of China's power sector are worth assessing. In this paper, a mathematical model, named the Long-term Multi-region Load-dispatch Grid-structure-based (LoMLoG) has been developed and a “most-likely” scenario has been created that delivers insights into optimal regional power generation, transmission and emissions profiles. The results confirm the importance of clean energy targets in driving deployment of renewable energy and maximizing its contribution to carbon mitigation of China’s power sector. In addition, the development of power transmission infrastructure will significantly influence regional power generation and transmission profiles. Last but not least, carbon mitigation approaches in the long term are discussed, and rational methods of allocating future carbon caps are presented.

In Search of Structured Business Model for Renewable Energy Expansion in India

While overall power generation in India has been increasing over the years, the coverage of households in the energy access net (with 38% of total households or over 500 million people having no energy access) and availability of supply (at only 5-6 hours/day) are still prime concerns for the Government. In such a scenario, is renewable energy an alternative given the shortage of supply from conventional sources, with over 30,000 MW stranded power plants, commitment of the Government to set up 100 Smart Cities, High-speed/Semi-speed Rails, Industrial Corridors and more beyond that ‘power to all’ by 2022’ Through this study, an attempt has been made to understand the socio-economic-environmental impact of renewable energy expansion and examined the factors that govern the feasibility and/or viability in meeting the ambitious clean energy target of 175 GW set out by the Government. The key determinants of renewable energy are found to be functionality variation, pattern of household’s energy consumption, willingness-to-pay, behavioral change in tariff and cost, grid integration, energy efficiency and access to cheap green finance. Selective implementation of a combination of On-Grid, Off-Grid and localized Mini-Grids application and flexible revenue modality such as ‘Pay as-you-go’ in off-grid areas and ‘Net-metering’ or ‘Feed-in-tariff’ concept in grid-connected areas are best suited. Further, enforceable renewable purchase obligation, renewable generation obligation, faster and efficient implementation of renewable energy certificates as tradable commodity, carbon trading as a source of revenue, green marketing, mobilization of funds under corporate social responsibility and single procurement of all renewable energy by a centralized unit would go a long way in achieving the renewable targets.

The combined effects of high penetration of wind and PV on power system frequency response

To achieve clean energy targets, more renewable generators – mainly wind and photovoltaic (PV) – are being integrated into electricity networks. However, wind and PV are non-synchronous generators to the grid and they traditionally have neither enough inertia response nor governor support to control major frequency excursions under most situations. Currently in South Australia, the combined generation of wind and rooftop PV has nearly reached the level of average demand with minor support through interconnection import. In such a situation it is likely that there may be fewer synchronous machines online for frequency regulation. Under such a scenario, a contingency could produce a more severe frequency excursion, violating in place frequency standards. Further, many distributed PV systems in South Australia may have a default under-frequency protection setting, which could be higher than the under-frequency load shedding (UFLS) threshold. Hence, a moderate generation/import trip may cause a massive secondary PV trip, which may result in an unacceptably low frequency, triggering further load shedding. This will certainly have an adverse impact on network security. A similar issue of secondary PV trip is not restricted to South Australia and may occur in other regions and countries as well. In this paper, a network which loosely represents the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) is selected and modified to investigate and analyze network frequency response under high non-synchronous machine penetration. This network contains all necessary models for a comprehensive frequency response study, such as synchronous machine, governor, stabilizer and wind generator. The relevant functions such as load frequency relief, PV tripping and load shedding which are essential for frequency response evaluation are established in the approved and well-accepted platform – PSS®E. The results show that low inertia and secondary PV tripping can become serious issues for network frequency regulation and in some situations they can even cause system oscillation and stability concerns.

China's 2020 clean energy target: Consistency, pathways and policy implications

China has proposed its 2020 clean energy target together with the climate change target of reducing CO2 intensity of the economy by 40–45% below the 2005 level. This article investigates the feasibility of these targets by testing their consistency under possible economic development scenarios. We analyse these targets from two perspectives: consistency with the overall economic growth and consistency with the international society's expectation on China's greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement responsibilities. The main findings are: under the recently announced 2020 target of gross domestic product (GDP) that is double the 2010 level, the adoption of a 15% clean energy target could result in excessive primary energy demand; and then with 40–45% GDP CO2 intensity reduction, CO2 emissions in 2020 could substantially exceed the International Energy Agency (IEA) 450ppm scenario for China. Thus we propose a 17% clean energy target that can reconcile the domestic plan with international expectation. Our article also outlines the pathways to realise clean energy development into 2020 and proposes policy recommendations.

Changing demand for food, livestock feed and biofuels in the past and in the near future

Population growth and increased welfare are not only important drivers for meat consumption, they also affect energy consumption. In the past energy supply and food supply hardly interfered with one another, but through the increasing use of biomass as an energy source both systems become intertwined. This paper addresses developments in the demand for food, livestock feed and energy. We first analyze historical trends and then develop a simple model for assessing global biomass needs in the near future. We distinguish between developing countries, transition countries and developed countries. While the first group of countries will mainly need extra food for their growing population, the second group will mainly require extra animal feed, since increased average income levels lead to higher demand for animal products. Many developed countries will need additional biomass to meet their clean energy targets, aimed at reducing CO 2 emissions of energy use. Our analysis shows that the future extra needs for biomass as fuel are in the same order of magnitude as the needs for food and feed (around 1000 MT each). This huge demand for biomass from the energy system is likely to cause large instabilities in the global agricultural markets.

Distribution Network Planning Considering Distributed Generation by Genetic Algorithm Combined with Graph Theory

Due to requirements for improving energy efficiency and meeting renewable and clean energy targets, an increasing amount of distributed generation is being connected to the distribution network. In order to facilitate increasing levels of distributed generation, the medium-voltage distribution network planning method considering distributed generation connection is proposed in this article. In addition to constraints in the conventional medium-voltage network planning model, constraints related to distributed generation connection, such as short-circuit capacity and short-circuit ratio, are considered in the new planning model. To overcome the problems of low heritability and topological infeasibility of the existing genetic algorithm applied to the distribution network planning, this article develops the efficient genetic algorithm combined with graph theory, which avoids the generation of unfeasible configurations. The efficiency of the proposed planning method is shown using a realistic region distribution network in Shanghai.