Current Energy Transition Research Articles

Overview of Green Energy as a Real Strategic Option for Sustainable Development

The global renewable energy landscape is changing rapidly. Green energies reduce greenhouse gas emissions, diversify the energy supply, and lower dependence on volatile and uncertain fossil fuel markets. The future looks promising for green energy sources, which are taking on an increasingly important role, especially in the current context, as governments are trying to identify viable solutions to the energy crisis and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Worldwide, there is a growing interest in and support for green energy sources, a factor that could help accelerate the current energy transition. Despite these positive developments, much remains to be done globally to make the energy transition a reality. In this respect, the European Union member states have committed to a wide neutrality target by establishing an increase in the total share of energy from renewable sources to 55% (by 2030) and, at the same time, reducing the net greenhouse gas effect emissions by at least 55% until 2030 to reach the neutrality target by 2050. Green energy sources are essential for long-term efforts to mitigate climate change and will play an important role in improving energy security and accessibility. The efforts of every country to strengthen the energy sector through the development of green energies will reduce geopolitical risks and disproportionate external costs for society. The large-scale use of green energies will contribute to sustainable development. The objective of our research is to review the literature on green energy in the context of sustainable development by analyzing research conducted by various authors and international organizations on these topics. The period considered for this study is 2011–2020. Our research focused on the EU 27, but the review also took into account the results obtained by other countries worldwide, such as China, the USA, Norway, and Iceland. The main research method used was the analysis of scientific papers, studies developed by international organizations, and a wide set of agreements and political commitments assumed by different states for developing green energy as a solution for sustainable development. The obtained results show an interesting international debate about green energies and how they can contribute to sustainable development. This paper’s results also show that in 2019 at the global level, low-carbon energy sources, including nuclear power and renewable energy, accounted for 15.7% of primary energy (solar, wind, hydropower, bioenergy, geothermal and wave and tidal), while in 2021, for the EU 27, the share of energy from renewable sources reached 22%. According to international statistics, more than 90% of the governments of many countries are making investments to efficiently capitalize on green energy sources and to design new models of sustainable economic and social development, in order to lower pollution levels, reduce the dependence on fossil fuel imports and limit the climate change impact.

Dynamic Capabilities in Electrical Energy Digitalization: A Case from the Norwegian Ecosystem

This paper aims to identify the dynamic capabilities required for electrical energy service providers to transform toward a digital and platform-based business models in the context of the current energy transition. The paper contributes to two fields: Information systems in the domain of platforms ecosystems and digital services innovation through the usage of dynamic capabilities theoretical lens and the field of energy informatics in the domain of digital business models and service innovation. Through the case study approach we investigate the case of Norwegian electrical energy provider TrønderEnergi and how the company is moving toward a fully digital business model and how the company build the dynamic capabilities required for the digitalization era. Through semi-structured interviews, the study managed to identify several activities related to each capability and then classified these activities under three main activities, which are: sensing, seizing, and transforming, and then classified them into sub-capabilities and identified activities related to each sup capability. The paper concludes with managerial implications for practitioners and initiates an empirical extension for the dynamic capabilities theoretical lens.

Oil markets between Scylla of recovery and Charybdis of climate policy

In 2020 the energy transition path was distorted by the COVID-19 pandemic which caused a sharp economic decline and a fast global recovery in 2021. Unlike that period, the years between 2001 and 2019 illustrated a different type of energy evolution for developed and developing countries regarding primary energy consumption. During this period the composition of energy balances of these two major groups demonstrated dramatic disparity, notably marked by the high share of coal in developing countries. The shock of 2020 led to a belief in expediting the transition to green energy, but in 2021 the economic recovery revived demand for oil and coal, dashing hopes for the growing renewable energy sources sector in the European Union that year. The return of coal, however, to the EU energy sector and stable demand for motor fuel globally led to the restoration of the GHG emission growth against the backdrop of the climate policy implementation failure. The current energy transition is denoted by features such as the flat oil demand in developed countries, the flat global demand for motor gasoline and the growing demand for diesel. The econometrics of demand for two motor oil products are quite opposite. For gasoline we have almost all hypotheses met: the negative influence of climate policy and oil prices, strong effect of dummies for shock of 2020 and 2021, and naturally 0.3 coefficient at GDP growth rate. Nevertheless, for diesel everything is exactly the opposite — only 0,4 coefficient at GDP and practically nothing else. This effect shows the strong role and trend for cargo use of diesel fueled trucks in the global economy. The high income of oil and gas majors in 2021 did not secure the investment upturn. A mature oil industry receives substantial profits for its investors, supplying dividends, and buying back debts without enlarging production capacities. At this point climate policy expectations of phasing out fossil fuels in the foreseeable future operated as a braking mechanism against reinvesting oil incomes. Moreover, at this junction we can observe governments’ limited capacity to pursue policies toward multiple objectives simultaneously: modest energy prices, energy transition and securing the sufficient capital formation for energy. The continued fusion of the economic upturn and energy transition will be dependent on demand and supply matching in the oil markets. It is also possible that the sanctions policies of 2022 may aggravate the situation, triggering high prices and uncertainties.

Spatio-temporal dynamic clustering modeling for solar irradiance resource assessment

Nowadays, with the development of international policies and agreements to promote the integration of renewable energy sources, mainly solar and wind, modeling the solar resource by including the spatio-temporal variability is crucial to determine future PV power plant locations and estimate potential power generation performances. However, contributions involving long-term periods and different time windows to explore such potential solar resource variability are generally scarce. Under this framework, the present paper proposes a methodology focused on characterizing and clustering the spatio-temporal solar resource variability through the global horizontal irradiance analysis. Hierarchical clustering technique is firstly used to classify the spatial data. Different time windows — from short-term to long-term data — can be subsequently evaluated by using various sources of information. The Spanish territory is selected as case study, considering 22-year period data (1999–2020) and 1,936,917 observations from online satellite database. Spatial variability and geographical clustering differences are discussed and compared depending on the selected time windows, identifying relevant spatial variations for some specific months. Additionally, some years present more variability as well, in line with the sunspot peak of the solar cycles. The proposed approach gives an alternative comprehensive spatio-temporal clustering and characterization of GHI evolution, providing a suitable methodology to help the current European sustainable energy transition.

Translation Strategies of Informative Texts from English to Chinese under the Guidance of Communicative Translation Theory-Take Energy Transition (Excerpt) for Example

With the conversion of traditional energy sources to new energy sources, the dissemination of informative texts on energy is increasing. The book Energy Transition, written by a famous French energy expert Bertrand Cassoret, has a strong reference effect on China's current energy transition. As one of the three major text types, the importance of informative texts is self-evident. This type of text is characterized by its strong practicality and contains many technical terms and complex sentences. Communicative translation theory focuses on the dissemination of information and the reader's response and is suitable for guiding the translation of informative texts. Guided by communicative translation theory, this paper explores different translation techniques in conjunction with the translation examples in Chapters 6 and 7 of this book. In terms of vocabulary, the method of part-of-speech conversion is used to convert nouns into verbs. In terms of sentences, the translation skills of voice conversion, inversion, addition and subtraction are adopted. According to communicative translation theory, the translator tries to make the language easier for the target readers to understand, thus achieving the purpose of information dissemination.

Invited papers from the PV Technologies for Desert Climates Workshop

Arid areas account for more than 20% of Earth's surface. Many of these arid areas suffer from harsh climates where energy consumption is high and production coexists with high hydrological stresses. In such areas, the production of water is directly linked to the production of electricity, bringing the Energy–Water nexus to a higher level [Heggy et al., Sustainable Energy-Water-Environment Nexus in Deserts (Springer, 2022)]. Under the current energy transition from a fossil-based economy to a renewable energy-based system, arid areas are seen as potential reservoirs for electricity production due to their high solar potential, thereby helping to achieve global decarbonation targets. This energy production transition will strongly affect the Energy–Water nexus as it will contribute to the decoupling of electricity from water production. The International Conference on Sustainable Energy–Water–Environment Nexus 2019 (ICSEWEN19) conference was the first to address the Sustainable Energy–Water Nexus in Deserts, bridging the gap between research and industry and highlighting the research capabilities relevant to Qatar, the region, and internationally. The Invited Papers from the International Conference on Sustainability, Energy, Water, and Environment Nexus in Desert Climates Special Collection in Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy presents articles covering the main elements of the conference with respect to solar photovoltaic implementation in desert environments as a key element to succeed in this global energy transition.

Radiolysis of Electrolytes in Batteries: A Quick and Efficient Screening Process for the Selection of Electrolyte-Additive Formulations.

Understanding aging phenomena in batteries is crucial to the design of efficient, safe, and reliable energy storage devices as a part of the current green energy transition. Among the different aspects of a battery, the behavior of the electrolyte is a key parameter. Therefore, screening the aging characteristics of different electrolytes is of major interest. However, few screening studies exist because these are time-consuming and require the monitoring of numerous charge and discharge cycles. It has been demonstrated here that radiation chemistry, i.e., the interaction between ionizing radiation and matter, is a valuable tool to screen the behavior of various electrolytes within a few hours. Indeed, the rapid radiolysis of electrolytes leads to the production of the same gases as produced by electrochemical cycling (i.e., H2 , CO2 ), and the ranking of electrolytes by their H2 production yields similar performance ratings to those reported in the literature. Therefore, this direct comparison of electrolytes alone, lasting a few hours without any manufacturing operations such as the fabrication of electrochemical cells, demonstrates that controlled irradiation makes it possible to predict battery cycling behavior. Additionally, mechanisms involved in the degradation processes of different electrolytes are proposed.

Physically Consistent Neural Networks for building thermal modeling: Theory and analysis

Due to their high energy intensity, buildings play a major role in the current worldwide energy transition. Building models are ubiquitous since they are needed at each stage of the life of buildings, i.e. for design, retrofitting, and control operations. Classical white-box models, based on physical equations, are bound to follow the laws of physics but the specific design of their underlying structure might hinder their expressiveness and hence their accuracy. On the other hand, black-box models are better suited to capture nonlinear building dynamics and thus can often achieve better accuracy, but they require a lot of data and might not follow the laws of physics, a problem that is particularly common for neural network (NN) models. To counter this known generalization issue, physics-informed NNs have recently been introduced, where researchers introduce prior knowledge in the structure of NNs to ground them in known underlying physical laws and avoid classical NN generalization issues.In this work, we present a novel physics-informed NN architecture, dubbed Physically Consistent NN (PCNN), which only requires past operational data and no engineering overhead, including prior knowledge in a linear module running in parallel to a classical NN. We formally prove that such networks are physically consistent – by design and even on unseen data – with respect to different control inputs and temperatures outside and in neighboring zones. We demonstrate their performance on a case study, where the PCNN attains an accuracy up to 40% better than a classical physics-based resistance-capacitance model on 3-day long prediction horizons. Furthermore, despite their constrained structure, PCNNs attain similar performance to classical NNs on the validation data, overfitting the training data less and retaining high expressiveness to tackle the generalization issue.

Assessment of the round-trip efficiency of gravity energy storage system: Analytical and numerical analysis of energy loss mechanisms

Emerging large-scale energy storage systems (ESS), such as gravity energy storage (GES), are required in the current energy transition to facilitate the integration of renewable energy systems. The main role of ESS is to reduce the intermittency of renewable energy production and balance energy supply and demand. Efficiency considerations are critical when developing energy storage systems. In this paper, a novel multi-domain simulation tool is employed to determine the round-trip energy efficiency (RTE) of gravity energy storage system. The study considers analytical and numerical simulations to investigate the effect of the flow rate and the pressure on the energy losses i.e., hydraulic losses, mechanical equipment losses, and particularly friction and leakage induced energy losses. Different designs are compared to determine the most efficient storage scenario and to assess the scaling up effect on GES' efficiency of storage. The effect of the internal and external positioning of GES return pipe on the system's round-trip efficiency was also compared. Finally, the overall round-trip efficiency of GES system was calculated and compared to other energy storage technologies. The results obtained from the analytical and numerical models show that the round-trip energy efficiency depends on the pressure inside GES chambers, consequently, the operating scale. The obtained round-trip efficiency of GES system ranges between 65 % and 90 %. The amount of energy lost due to the sealing friction represents the largest share in comparison with other loss mechanisms, with a percentage of 21.1 % and 0.9 % for small-scale and large-scale operations, respectively. This study demonstrates that GES operates more effectively in large-scale applications.

A Framework for Assessing the Readiness and Vulnerability of the Romanian Territories Affected by the Just Transition Process

Abstract The paper consists of an exploratory study which seeks to build a multi-criteria index to assess the vulnerability and the readiness of regions affected by the energy transition, based on data collected from six Romanian affected regions (Dolj, Gorj, Hunedoara, Mureș, Galați and Prahova). Literature points out both the distributional and the procedural dimension of the just energy transition process, emphasizing that the current energy transition process is distinct from previous ones due to the complex actors constellation and to the policy planning behind it. The current research is a first attempt to use various socio-economic and demographic indicators towards developing composite indexes that allow for a better understanding of the just transition processes across Europe, testing enablers and disablers of a successful transition process. The exploratory study examines two premises: that coal regions are more vulnerable than emissionsintensive regions which are not relying on coal and that the readiness of regions to embark on a transition process is directly proportional to their average GDP/ capita. I use several indicators as proxies to assess the vulnerability level (unemployment, GDP/ capita, the average monthly salary, the technological intensity of the local economies, the share of the workforce employed in industry) and others to assess the readiness level (the share of employees in transition-affected large enterprises in the total share of employees, the level of interest and engagement of local stakeholders, EU funds absorption capacity at local level). Data analysis shows surprisingly high variance of the same indicator between affected regions and unexpected correlations, such as a negative correlation between regional wealth and local authorities’ capacity to attract EU funds. It also underlines the need for a larger number of cases and more indicators in the index, to make the results statistically significant and to compensate for the high variance among indicators.

Up-to-date literature review on Solar PV systems: Technology progress, market status and R&D

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies have achieved commercial acceptance, technological maturity and foresee a leading role in the current energy transition to combat the adverse environmental issues posed by fossil fuel-based power generation. The market of photovoltaic technology is rapidly evolving with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) equal to 34% between 2010 and 2020. This review presents updated information on the solar PV development from the material, market, and engineering perspectives. Cell efficiencies, market trends, cost of PV systems , and global research efforts over the last years are provided. Real monitored performances reveal a decrease of up to 10% of PV power output due to soiling effects. This paper discusses soiling mitigation approaches, a critical technical pathway to improve the power output of solar PV systems . A particular emphasis was put into recent and novel experimental and numerical investigations pursued by the PV research community related to heat management in PV systems. Finally, critical challenges and prospects of the solar PV technology are highlighted and discussed. • An updated literature review on PV energy system sis given. • Market trends, technology and efficiency progress are summarized. • Relevant techniques for mitigation soiling effects and heat management of PV cells are reported. • Critical challenges, prospects and research priority pathways are highlighted.

Implications of digitalization in facilitating socio-technical energy transitions in Europe

The energy sector is digitalizing - we see a lot of smart energy services providing higher value to customers through data processing, which also increases the importance of transparency and security of data access and processing. Nevertheless, the widespread use of these services is lagging behind for enabling fundamental transitions of energy systems. This interdisciplinary article operationalises the MLP of sustainability transitions and draws together previous research on the application and implications of energy data and consumer motivation for analysing the imbalance between the supply and demand of smart energy services in the current energy transition. Besides drawing together the opportunities and challenges with energy data of 85 international smart energy services, the empirical findings present some new energy data use cases aimed especially for consumers and provide an extensive overview of additional data types with reasoning needed by service providers. These findings are complemented with the more in-depth Estonian electricity sector digitalization case study. Furthermore, we propose a list of characteristics essential for Pan-European energy data access with the main aim to open up data, activate consumers and increase the demand of smart energy services for speeding up the green energy transition.

Enhancing the evaluation of Energy Investments by supplementing traditional discounted cash flow with Energy Return on Investment analysis

Energy companies, like companies more generally, routinely have to make investment decisions by comparing alternative investment projects. In the face of the uncertainty of the current energy transition, traditional economic tools, such as discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, that depend on long term cash forecasting, offer limited, deterministic and potentially misleading insights. Additionally there are many pressures on companies to expand decision making criteria to “ESG” (Environmental, Social and Governance) considerations. But these are often qualitative with no clear standards, leaving investors often forced to make significant investments based on poorly understood, at times misleading and even self-defeating considerations. We explore the application of Biophysical Economics (BPE), an approach to economics based on the natural sciences, as an alternative to provide an additional lens that cuts through the uncertainty and political pressures to help companies navigate this uncertainty and make more robust long term investment decisions. The most immediately useful tool within BPE is the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI). Specifically we compare an investment case for oil companies, one in oil sands vs. one in microbial-enhanced oil recovery, applying the two methodologies in parallel. Results from a traditional economic perspective weakly favor the oil sands, whereas biophysical economics strongly favors the microbial case due to is significantly lower energy requirement to produce the energy that it yields. A close examination indicates that EROI can be used effectively and practically next to DCF to provide better insights and identify cases that are fundamentally less sustainable for society.

Coordinated effects of energy transition on air pollution mitigation and CO2 emission control in China

China has made progress in energy transition to improve air quality, but still confronts challenges including further ambient PM2.5 reduction, O3 pollution mitigation, and CO2 emission control. To explore the coordinated effects of energy transition on air quality and carbon emission in the near term in China, we designed 4 scenarios in 2025 based on different projections of energy transition progress with varying end-of-pipe control level, in each of which we calculated emissions of major air pollutants and CO2, and simulated ambient PM2.5 and O3 concentrations. Results show that energy transition has disparate effects on emission reduction of different air pollutants and sectors, which largely depends on their current end-of-pipe control levels. The different effects on emission reduction may result in opposite variation tendencies of ambient PM2.5 and O3 concentration in a future scenario with aggressive energy transition policies and end-of-pipe control level in 2018. With the end-of-pipe control level strengthened in 2025, PM2.5 and O3 concentration could both reduce on the national scale, but the reduction of ambient O3 lags behind PM2.5, indicating the difficulty of O3 pollution control. As to CO2, national emission would go up in 2025 either implementing current or aggressive energy transition policies due to growing needs of electricity and on-road transportation, but emissions in most provinces could decline to below the 2018 level with aggressive energy transition policies because of substitution of clean energy in industrial, residential and off-road transportation sectors. The study results suggest strictly implementing restrictive end-of-pipe control measures along with energy transition to simultaneously reduce ambient PM2.5 and O3 concentration, and accelerating substitution of renewable energy in power sectors where electricity generation grows rapidly to synergistically control air pollution and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the projection of CO2 emissions could provide references for short-term emission control targets from the perspective of air quality improvement.

Full Cost of Electricity “FCOE” and Energy Returns “eROI”

Understanding electricity generation’s true cost is paramount to choosing and prioritizing our future energy systems. This paper introduces the full cost of electricity (FCOE) and discusses energy returns (eROI). The authors conclude with suggestions for energy policy considering the new challenges that come with global efforts to “decarbonize”.
 
 In 2021, debate started to occur regarding energy security (or rather electricity security) which was driven by an increase in electricity demand, shortage of energy raw material supply, insufficient electricity generation from wind and solar, and geopolitical challenges, which in turn resulted in high prices and volatility in major economies. This was witnessed around the world, for instance in China, India, the US, and of course Europe. Reliable electricity supply is crucial for social and economic stability and growth which in turn leads to eradication of poverty. 
 
 The authors explain and quantify the gap between installed energy capacity and actual electricity generation when it comes to variable renewable energy. The main challenges for wind and solar are its intermittency and low energy density, and as a result practically every wind mill or solar panel requires either a backup or storage, which adds to system costs.
 
 Widely used levelized cost of electricity, LCOE, is inadequate to compare intermittent forms of energy generation with dispatchable ones and when making decisions at a country or society level. We introduce and describe the methodology for determining the full cost of electricity (FCOE) or the full cost to society. FCOE explains why wind and solar are not cheaper than conventional fuels and in fact become more expensive the higher their penetration in the energy system. The IEA confirms “…the system value of variable renewables such as wind and solar decreases as their share in the power supply increases”. This is illustrated by the high cost of the “green” energy transition.
 
 We conclude with suggestions for a revised energy policy. Energy policy and investors should not favor wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, gas, or coal but should support all energy systems in a manner which avoids energy shortage and energy poverty. All energy always requires taking resources from our planet and processing them, thus negatively impacting the environment. It must be humanity’s goal to minimize these negative impacts in a meaningful way through investments – not divestments – by increasing, not decreasing, energy and material efficiencies.
 
 Therefore, the authors suggest energy policy makers to refocus on the three objectives, energy security, energy affordability, and environmental protection. This translates into two pathways for the future of energy: 
 
 (1) invest in education and base research to pave the path towards a New Energy Revolution where energy systems can sustainably wean off fossil fuels. 
 
 (2) In parallel, energy policy must support investment in conventional energy systems to improve their efficiencies and reduce the environmental burden of generating the energy required for our lives.
 
 Additional research is required to better understand eROI, true cost of energy, material input, and effects of current energy transition pathways on global energy security.

Restructuring of the Coal Mining Industry and the Challenges of Energy Transition in Poland (1990–2020)

The European Union’s climate policy and the energy transition associated with it force individual countries, their economies and their industrial sectors to carry out thorough changes, often of a deep, high-cost and restructuring nature. The aim of the article is to provide a multidimensional assessment of the forms and effects of the restructuring of coal mining companies in Poland in light of the current energy transition process. The research problem is encapsulated within the following two interdependent questions: Has the restructuring process allowed the coal mining industry to achieve sufficient efficiency to sustainably compete in the open market, and to what extent, if at all, have the objectives of restructuring been achieved from the perspective of changes in the energy mix? The research covers all coal mining companies included in the official statistics. It adopts a long-term perspective (1990–2020), dating from the beginning of the systemic transformation in Poland. The research involved the use of multivariate financial analysis methods, including the logit model for predicting the degree of financial threat, as well as taxonomic methods for assessing the dissimilarity of structures and their concentration. The general conclusion of the research is that there has been a lack of consistency (follow-up) between the forms and effects of restructuring in coal mining companies in Poland on the one hand and changes in the composition of the country’s energy mix as a result of the energy transition on the other. In particular, this means that such restructuring, being neither effective nor efficient, has failed to accelerate change in the energy mix.

An experimental, theoretical and kinetic-modeling study of hydrogen sulfide pyrolysis and oxidation

Hydrogen sulfide chemistry has recently undergone a renewed interest due to the current energy transition, requiring a proper treatment of such impurities in the sources like shale gas or biogas. Moreover, the lower-temperature, diluted conditions considered nowadays for reducing pollutant emissions require a wider-range development and validation of the pyrolysis and oxidation mechanisms. In this work, this was addressed through an experimental campaign carried out in three reactor facilities, namely a jet-stirred reactor and two flow reactors. A wide range of operating conditions could thus be covered, in terms of equivalence ratios under lean conditions (0.018≤Φ≤0.5), temperatures (400K≤T≤2000K) and residence times (0.1s≤τ≤2s). The mole fractions of reactants (H2S, O2), products (SO2, H2O) and intermediates (H2) were measured. In parallel, a kinetic mechanism of H2S pyrolysis and oxidation was developed by including the latest available kinetic rates on sulfur pyrolysis and oxidation chemistry, which were added to a core H2/O2 module, previously validated. Such a mechanism included a re-evaluation of selected key reaction steps, identified via sensitivity analysis. Results showed a general agreement of the experimental measurements with predictions: in the case of pyrolysis, the thermal decomposition reaction (H2S + M = H2 + S + M) was identified as the sole controlling step: a critical choice of the kinetic rate had to be made, due to the significant disagreement among the literature rates. Concerning oxidation, the H-abstraction from H2S by O2 was found to be the major bottleneck at the lowest temperatures, with HO2 becoming a key abstractor, too, under very lean conditions. At higher temperatures, a key role was played instead by the H-abstraction of H2S with S (H2S + S = SH + SH), acting in the reverse direction and providing S radicals, boosting the oxidation process.

Investigation on Current and Prospective Energy Transition Scenarios in Indian Landscape Using Integrated SWOT-MCDA Methodology

India has ambitious goals to increase renewable energy penetration, and significant progress has been made since 2017. However, the Indian energy mix is highly dominated by fossil fuels. To set India on the pathway of the energy transition, a comprehensive analysis of the complex factors influencing the Indian energy sector is required. This study is put forward to delineate the current energy transition scenario in India and to direct the energy sector towards a prospective scenario for accomplishing a smooth energy transition. A hybrid quantitative-qualitative SWOT-integrated MCDA methodology is employed to accomplish the objective of this study. An extensive literature review is performed to understand and sort the various factors under each SWOT category. Fuzzy AHP methodology is utilized to convert the qualitative significance of each SWOT factor into quantitative scores, through which the crucial influencing factor in the current energy transition scenario is obtained. The top three highest-influence factors include utilizing the cost-competitiveness of solar and wind energy technologies over fossil fuels, the inadequacy of manpower having specialized skillsets, and connecting households to electricity and electrifying the transportation sector. The recommendation strategies are framed and presented for prospective energy transition scenarios. These strategies are assessed against the SWOT factors by using the PROMETHEE II methodology. The assessment results highlight that developing robust regulatory and policy frameworks, increasing the contribution of local energy resources, and promoting the distributed generation and grid infrastructure development are the highest-scoring strategies that have a synergic effect on multiple dimensions of energy transition, including political, financial, and techno-economic aspects. The proposed study will be conducive to framing effective policy in the upcoming years to assist the energy transition in India.

Stakeholder objectives for joining an energy community: Flemish case studies

Energy communities (ECs) are considered an important element of the current energy transition. Most studies have focused on how to specifically engage citizens in such communities. In this paper, the emphasis is on the objectives of other stakeholders. Only by taking all motivations and interests into account can a successful project be established.In our study, relevant stakeholders, their objectives for joining an EC and the importance of each of these objectives were determined in a participatory manner through four Flemish pilot cases. The results provide an overview of general and context-specific elements that need to be taken into account when designing an EC as well as when setting up policy initiatives to stimulate large-scale EC roll-out. For potential members, financial incentives are the main drivers of participation but often not the decisive objectives. Their decision to join is influenced by a variable combination of social, economic, technical and environmental motivations. Local governments mainly want an EC to bring social and environmental advantages, and the local distribution system operator (DSO) only supports ECs when they can bring added value to their main grid and society as a whole and can help avoid major grid investments.

Energy transition and green energy: the struggle for climate and for a new redivision of the world—and the proposal for a balanced Russia–EU solution

ABSTRACT The author argues that current energy transition is the seventh one in the long-term history of the mankind though different from the previous ones. He explains why Paris Agreement (the ‘no return point’ for current energy transition) has grown from the 1970s. He explains the role of hydrogen in current energy transition and three different paths for H2 production: water electrolysis; methane steam reforming with CO2 emissions and CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS); methane pyrolysis and similar technologies without CO2 emissions. He demonstrates their competitive advantages and disadvantages. He describes European Union (EU) vision of cooperation in H2 within EU hydrogen strategy and H2 section of Russian Energy Strategy. He argues why cooperation based on Russian gas supplies to the EU and H2 production in EU at end-use in ‘EU H2 valleys’ based on mostly pyrolysis technologies without CO2 emissions is the mutually beneficial one for both Russia and the EU: for the EU it helps to decrease low-carbon development costs and for Russia to further monetize its vast gas resources within export-oriented decarbonization. He presents his ‘win-win’ scenario for Russia–EU hydrogen cooperation.