Energy Technological Change Research Articles

RESEARCH ON THE ENERGY GRIDS TRANSFORMATION WITH THE SMART TECHNOLOGIES USED IN ENTERPRISES

Rapid changes in energy technologies, the emergence of new opportunities and energy resources, and evolution in fundamental views on energy systems' functioning can be an impetus for the energy sector's transformation at both the macro and individual enterprise levels. Smart technologies in energy are a source of diffusion of innovations for various spheres of economic activity. However, when transforming energy networks, it is essential to take into account external and internal factors related to adaptation to new technologies. In addition, there may be technological, economic, social, or political constraints and risks that make it impossible to implement energy network transformation projects. Accordingly, this study aimed to study the transformation of energy networks using smart technologies in enterprises by reviewing and clustering publications in publications indexed by the Scopus database. As a result of the bibliometric review of 608 publications on energy network transformation published in leading journals in 2017-2020, the main trends in the energy sector were identified. The vast majority of energy network transformation projects were devoted to the renovation of existing electricity networks, developing micro-networks, and introducing energy storage and consumption systems. Most of the projects were described in documents in 6 thematic areas: energy (26.7%), engineering (23.0%), environmental sciences (11.3%), computer science (11.2), mathematics (7.1%), social sciences (4.1%). Analysis of the geographical distribution of authors of scientific works studying the transformation of energy networks showed the most significant number of publications published by scientists from the United States, China, and Germany. When transforming energy networks, companies use a wide range of solutions. The latter cover virtualized / cloud architectures, efficient polar coding for fronting, DC vector control technologies, passive cooling, and other solutions to increase system performance and stability, support energy storage systems, and actively engage consumers.

How has external knowledge contributed to lithium-ion batteries for the energy transition?

SummaryInnovation in clean-energy technologies is central toward a net-zero energy system. One key determinant of technological innovation is the integration of external knowledge, i.e., knowledge spillovers. However, extant work does not explain how individual spillovers come about: the mechanisms and enablers of these spillovers. We ask how knowledge from other technologies, sectors, or scientific disciplines is integrated into the innovation process in an important technology for a net-zero future: lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), based on a qualitative case study using extant literature and an elite interview campaign with key inventors in the LIB field and R&D/industry experts. We identify the breakthrough innovations in LIBs, discuss the extent to which breakthrough innovations—plus a few others—have resulted from spillovers, and identify different mechanisms and enablers underlying these spillovers, which can be leveraged by policymakers and R&D managers who are interested in facilitating spillovers in LIBs and other clean-energy technologies.

Synergizing China's energy and carbon mitigation goals: General equilibrium modeling and policy assessment

Abstract In this work, we enrich the technical details of the energy sector by extending the conventional framework of computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling, and we take into account uncertainty regarding fossil-fueled technologies and endogenous nonfossil energy technological change, which provides us with formidable benefits to explore the policy synergy of China's multiple energy development and carbon control targets. We find that carbon pricing policy plays a consistently negative role in economic growth, while the economic impacts of nonfossil investment incentives differ in their policy stringency. Compared to energy intensity reduction goals that could be easily attained given the baseline effort, achieving carbon peaking targets may be relatively difficult without additional policy intervention, and the policy efforts required to reach energy consumption control targets in 2030 and nonfossil energy development targets in 2050 are even stricter. This research also identifies significant policy effect differences in carbon pricing and nonfossil investment incentives.

Modelling the impacts of challenging 2030 DPRK’s GHGs mitigation targets on DPRK’s energy system

The DPRK ratified the Paris Agreement on 1st August 2016 and fully committed to achieving goals for reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) in its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) which was submitted on 3rd October 2016. The DPRK’s INDC includes a mitigation and an adaptation component. In the mitigation component, as unconditional contribution, DPRK intends to achieve with domestic resources the reduction of GHG emissions by 8% by 2030 as compared to Business as Usual (BAU) scenario. Moreover, the conditional contributions are measures that could be implemented if additional international financial support, technology transfer and capacity building are received. The national contribution could be increased up to 40% with international support. This paper focuses on these mitigation targets for DPRK by an interesting case study of GHG emissions for a 12 year period from 1990 to 2002. We proposed the DPRK’s GHGs mitigation model by analyzing the Irish TIMES (The Integrated MARKAL–EFOM System) energy systems modelling tool, and proved the technical availability of CO2-8 scenario delivering an 8% emissions reduction target by 2030. We then compared the scenario results in terms of changes in energy technology, the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Digital Management of Solar Energy En Route to Energy Self-Sufficiency.

The Internet of Things approach to manage clean electricity produced from sun, wind, and water is, alongside the hydrogen fuel cell and the Li‐ion battery, the key enabling technology for the transition to 100% renewable energy. Practical examples from distant countries are used to show how today's digital control technology is actually used to ease the generation and utilization of clean, reliable, and cheap solar energy on an annual basis. The conclusions are of relevance also to the redesign of energy education programs in response to dramatic changes in energy technologies.

Finding Order in Chaos: Grappling with the Policy and Politics of Sustainable Energy Transition

Finding Order in Chaos: Grappling with the Policy and Politics of Sustainable Energy Transition

The role of values in analyzing energy systems: Insights from moral philosophy, institutional economics, and sociology

In efforts to mitigate climate change, energy systems are undergoing a profound transition towards low-carbon systems. This transition does not only involve changes in energy technologies but importantly it is shaped and incentivized by changes in the rules and regulations that govern energy markets. It is a normative transition, focused at achieving secure, affordable, and sustainable energy provision. In a multidisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a framework that highlights the role of normative principles – i.e. values – in socio-technical systems. Building on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, the analysis explicates how values relate to institutional change in the case of the energy transition.

Updating energy security and environmental policy: Energy security theories revisited

The energy security theories are based on the premises of sufficient and reliable supply of fossil fuels at affordable prices in centralized supply systems. Policy-makers and company chief executives develop energy security strategies based on the energy security theories and definitions that dominate in the research and policy discourse. It is therefore of utmost importance that scientists revisit these theories in line with the latest changes in the energy industry: the rapid advancement of renewables and smart grid, decentralization of energy systems, new environmental and climate challenges. The study examines the classic energy security concepts (neorealism, neoliberalism, constructivism and international political economy) and assesses if energy technology changes are taken into consideration. This is done through integrative literature review, comparative analysis, identification of ‘international relations’ and ‘energy’ research discourse with the use of big data, and case studies of Germany, China, and Russia. The paper offers suggestions for revision of energy security concepts through integration of future technology considerations.

Stories about ourselves: How national narratives influence the diffusion of large-scale energy technologies

Examining past examples of rapid, transformational changes in energy technologies could help governments understand the factors associated with such transitions. We used an existing dataset to assess government strategies to connect new energy technologies with national narratives.Analyzing the diffusion stories told by experts, we demonstrate how governments connected the new technologies with their national narratives. The United States government supported the development of nuclear power after World War II with the national narrative that the United States was destined to improve creation, increasing the potential of raw materials exponentially for the nation’s good (“atoms for peace,” electricity “too cheap to meter”). In Brazil, the development of sugar cane ethanol was supported by the government’s invoking the national narrative of suffering leading to knowledge and redemption, coupled with the quest for improved societal well-being (technological development to produce ethanol and employment for farmers). In Sweden, biomass energy was tied to the national narrative of local control, as well as love of nature and tradition (the use of natural products).We found strong evidence that the pairing of technological transformations with national narratives facilitated the successful development and implementation of these major energy technologies in the three cases analyzed here.

Soft Energy Paths Revisited: Politics and Practice in Energy Technology Transitions

This paper argues that current efforts to study and advocate for a change in energy technologies to reduce their climate and other environmental impacts often ignore the political, social, and bodily implications of energy technology choices. Framing renewable energy technologies exclusively in terms of their environmental benefits dismisses important questions about how energy infrastructures can be designed to correspond to democratic forms of socio-politics, forms of social organization that involve independence in terms of meeting energy needs, resilience in terms of adapting to change, participatory decision making and control, equitable distribution of knowledge and efficacy, and just distribution of ownership. Recognizing technological choices as political choices brings explicit attention to the kinds of socio-political restructuring that could be precipitated through a renewable energy technology transition. This paper argues that research on energy transitions should consider the political implications of technological choices, not just the environmental consequences. Further, emerging scholarship on energy practices suggests that social habits of energy usage are themselves political, in that they correspond to and reinforce particular arrangements of power. Acknowledging the embedded politics of technology, as the decades’ old concept of soft path technologies encourages, and integrating insights on the politics of technology with insights on technological practices, can improve future research on energy policy and public perceptions of energy systems. This paper extends insights regarding the socio-political implications of energy paths to consider how understandings of energy technologies as constellations of embedded bodily practices can help further develop our understanding of the consequences of energy technologies, consequences that move beyond environmental implications to the very habits and behaviors of patterned energy usage, which are themselves arguably political. This paper calls for future research that involves explicit examination of the relationship between technologies, socio-political distributions of power and access to energy resources, the social organization of energy practices, and options for energy transitions not just in terms of energy source, but also in terms of scale, design, and modes of ownership and control.

Invention in energy technologies: Comparing energy efficiency and renewable energy inventions at the firm level

Many countries, especially in Europe, have ambitious goals to transform their national energy systems towards renewable energies. Technological change in both renewable production and efficient use of energy can help us to make these targets come true. Using a panel of German firms linked to the PATSTAT patent data, we study inventions in both types of energy technologies and investigate the role prior inventions as technology-push factors play for both types of technologies. In addition and more importantly, we study whether previous inventions in non-energy technologies also stimulate technical change in energy technologies and whether this effect differs between energy conservation and renewable energy technologies.

Total Factor Energy Productivity and Efficiency in the Yangtze Delta Region: An Application of DEA-Malmquist Index

This paper used data envelopment analysis (DEA)-Malmquist index method to analyze the total factors energy productivity (TFEP) and efficiency of 16 cities in the Yangtze Delta region from the year 2008 to 2012. According to the computational results, the average TFEP of 16 cities during 1998-2012 is 0.978, and the average total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) is 1.011, while the average total factor energy technological change (TFTC) is 0.969. So the rapid drop of TFEP is mainly ascribable to the rapid drop of TFTC in the Yangtze Delta region. Specific to different cities and different period, there exists significant inequality catch-up effect and innovation effect in the Yangtze Delta region. In which, the catch-up effect of Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Nantong, Taizhou1 and Jiaxing is evident, while the innovation effect of Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi and Zhoushan is more significant.

Energy Technological Change and Capacity Under Uncertainty in Learning

This paper explores the role of learning in managing the capacities of existing and emerging energy technologies. Specifically, we address how uncertainties in learning rates impact RD 2) near-term or early investments are required to achieve a mix of sustainable energy technological portfolios as a hedge against RD and 3) the management of electricity generation capacities under learning uncertainty allows decision makers to chart a more prudent intermediate path for energy technological growth through the creation of a more diversified technological portfolio.

Scenario-based energy efficiency and productivity in China: A non-radial directional distance function analysis

Improving energy efficiency and productivity is one of the most cost-effective ways for achieving the sustainable development target in China. This paper employs non-radial directional distance function approach to empirically investigate energy efficiency and energy productivity by including CO2 emissions as an undesirable output. Three production scenarios, namely energy conservation (EC), energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER), and energy conservation, emission reduction and economic growth (ECEREG), are specified to assess China's energy efficiency and productivity growth during the period of Eleventh Five-Year Plan. Our empirical results show that there exist substantial differences in China's total-factor energy efficiency and productivity under different scenarios. Under the ECEREG scenario, the national average total-factor energy efficiency score was 0.6306 in 2005–2010, while the national average total-factor energy productivity increased by 0.27% annually during the period. The main driving force for energy productivity growth in China was energy technological change rather than energy efficiency change.

Modelling the impacts of challenging 2050 European climate mitigation targets on Ireland’s energy system

The Copenhagen Accord established political consensus on the 2°C limit (in global temperature increase) and for deep cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels to achieve this goal. The European Union has set ambitious GHG targets for the year 2050 (80–95% below 1990 levels), with each Member State developing strategies to contribute to these targets. This paper focuses on mitigation targets for one Member State, Ireland, an interesting case study due to the growth in GHG emissions (24% increase between 1990 and 2005) and the high share of emissions from agriculture (30% of total GHG emissions). We use the Irish TIMES energy systems modelling tool to build a number of scenarios delivering an 80% emissions reduction target by 2050, including accounting for the limited options for agriculture GHG abatement by increasing the emissions reduction target for the energy system. We then compare the scenario results in terms of changes in energy technology, the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy. We also quantify the economic impacts of the mitigation scenarios in terms of marginal CO2 abatement costs and energy system costs. The paper also sheds light on the impacts of short term targets and policies on long term mitigation pathways.

Inducing transformational energy technological change

Reducing risks of severe climate change in the latter part of the 20th Century is likely to require not only incremental improvements in known energy technologies, but the discovery of transformational new energy technologies. This paper reviews current knowledge about both demand and supply aspects of the challenge of accelerating transformational change, considering both economic and policy incentives, including targeted government funding of research and development, and several other schools of thought about drivers of scientific discovery and innovation.

Report calls for transforming the U.S. energy system

The United States should develop a coordinated, government‐wide, federal energy policy to transform the nation's energy system within 1–2 decades, according to a 29 November report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). A key recommendation is for the president to establish a quadrennial energy review process to provide a road map for short‐ and long‐term energy objectives, to outline legislative proposals, to put forward anticipated executive branch actions, and to identify resource requirements for research and development programs.Entitled “Report to the president on accelerating the pace of change in energy technologies through an integrated federal energy policy,” the report also calls for the government to invest $16 billion per year for clean energy innovation. The report indicates that this would be an approximate tripling of current Department of Energy investments in energy science and technology. Stating that “the discretionary budget is under severe pressure,” the report recommends that the president engage the private sector and Congress to generate about $10 billion per year of funding through new revenue streams. A small charge on electricity and transportation fuel could be “well within the normal fluctuations in price seen by consumers” and generate billions of dollars for research.

Analysis of energy technology changes and associated costs

An integrated mathematical model constituting of interlinked submodels on technology costs, progress and market penetration has been developed. The model was applied to a few new energy technologies to investigate the economic boundary conditions for a full market breakthrough and corresponding market impact on a 50 years time scale. The model shows that public subsidies amounting to slightly over 220 billion € in total worldwide would be necessary over the next 30–40 years to bring wind and photovoltaics to a cost breakthrough in the market and to reach a 20 and 5% share of all electricity at t = 50 years, respectively. These up-front learning investments would be partly amortized toward the end of the interval as the new technologies become cost competitive but could be fully paid off earlier if CO2 emission trading schemes emerge even with modest CO2 price levels. The findings are sensitive to changes in the parameter assumptions used. For example, a 2% uncertainty in the main parameters of the model could lead to a spread of tens of per cents in the future energy impact and subsidy needs, or when related to the above subsidy estimate, 155–325 billion €. This underlines the overall uncertainty in predicting future impacts and resource needs for new energy technologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Trends and scenarios of the carbon budget in postagricultural Puerto Rico (1936–2060)

AbstractContrary to the general trend in the tropics, Puerto Rico underwent a process of agriculture abandonment during the second half of the 20th century as a consequence of socioeconomic changes toward urbanization and industrialization. Using data on land‐use change, biomass accumulation in secondary forests, and ratios between gross domestic product (GDP) and carbon emissions, we developed a model of the carbon budget for Puerto Rico between 1936 and 2060. As a consequence of land abandonment, forests have expanded rapidly since 1950, achieving the highest sequestration rates between 1980 and 1990. Regardless of future scenarios of demography and land use, sequestration rates will decrease in the future because biomass accumulation decreases with forest age and there is little agricultural land remaining to be abandoned. Due to high per‐capita consumption and population density, carbon emissions of Puerto Rico have increased dramatically and exceeded carbon sequestration during the second half of the 20th century. Although Puerto Rico had the highest percent of reforestation for a tropical country, emissions during the period 1950–2000 were approximately 3.5 times higher than sequestration, and current annual emission is almost nine times the rate of sequestration. Additionally, while sequestration will decrease over the next six decades, current socioeconomic trends suggest increasing emissions unless there are significant changes in energy technology or consumption patterns. In conclusion, socioeconomic changes leading to urbanization and industrialization in tropical countries may promote high rates of carbon sequestration during the decades following land abandonment. Initial high rates of carbon sequestration can balance emissions of developing countries with low emission/GDP ratio. In Puerto Rico, the socioeconomic changes that promoted reforestation also promoted high‐energy consumption, and resulted in a net increase in carbon emissions.

Evaluating the health benefits of transitions in household energy technologies in Kenya

Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are the leading cause of the burden of disease worldwide and have been causally linked with exposure to pollutants from domestic biomass fuels in developing countries. We used longitudinal health data coupled with detailed monitoring of personal exposure from more than two years of field measurements in rural Kenya to examine the reductions in disease from a range of interventions, including changes in energy technology (stove or fuel) and cooking location. Our estimates show that the suite of interventions considered here, on average reduce the fraction of times that infants and children below 5 yr are diagnosed with disease by 24–64% for ARI and 21–44% for acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI). The range of reductions is larger for those above 5 yr, and is highly dependent on the time-activity budget of individuals. These reductions due to environmental management in infant and child ALRI are of similar magnitude to those achieved by medical interventions.