Large-scale Development Of Renewable Energy Research Articles

CO2 emissions of constructing China's power grid towards carbon-neutral target: Based on top-down and bottom-up integrated model.

Power sector is the largest industrial emitter in China, and renewable energy development would contribute to the large-scale construction of power grid. Mitigating carbon emissions of power gird construction is extremely important. So, the objective of this study is to understand embodied carbon emissions of power grid construction under carbon neutrality target, and then put forward to policy implications of carbon mitigation. This study, based on top-down and bottom-up integrated assessment models (IAMs), investigates carbon emissions of power grid construction towards 2060, through identifying the key driving factors and forecasting their embodied emissions in line with China's carbon neutrality target. Our results show that, the increase of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dominates the increase in embodied carbon emissions of power grid construction, while energy efficiency and energy structure improvement contribute to the decrease. Large scale renewable energy development promotes the power grid construction. In 2060, total embodied carbon emissions would increase to 1105.7 Million tons (Mt) under the carbon neutrality target. However, the cost and key carbon-neutral technologies should be re-considered to ensure the sustainable electricity supply. The results could provide data reference and decision-making of designing power construction and mitigating carbon emissions of power sector in future.

Can China's energy-consumption permit trading scheme achieve the “Porter” effect? Evidence from an estimated DSGE model

The implementation of China's energy-consumption permit trading scheme (ECPTS) is a recent initiative to accelerate energy transition towards carbon neutrality; however, its impacts on the economy and environment have not been well studied. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model is employed to estimate the macroeconomic effect of the ECPTS. The results show that in the short term, the ECPTS could obtain environmental dividends but fails to achieve the “Porter” effect, and its energy-saving effect is only significant over the long run. When combined with the implementation of carbon tax, the negative impact of the ECPTS on final output could be narrowed but a long-term loss of social welfare is inevitable due to labor transfer costs between energy firms. Moreover, a low-carbon energy structure could weaken the macroeconomic effect of the ECPTS, which is in line with expectations as China's energy transition aims to achieve large-scale development of renewable energy. The findings support the Chinese government to expand the regional coverage of the ECPTS and explore a coordination mechanism with carbon pricing policy. The government is also suggested to improve the legislation and supporting measures of the ECPTS to weaken its negative impact on the macroeconomy.

Improved Combined Inertial Control of Wind Turbine Based on CAE and DNN for Temporary Frequency Support

With the continuous and large-scale development of renewable energy, there is a prominent decrease in the level of inertia in new power systems. This decrease leads to the weakening of the system’s capability to provide inertia support and frequency regulation during disturbance events. The wind turbines (WT), as the main representatives of renewable energy generation, should be more efficiently involved in the power system frequency regulation dynamics. However, optimal frequency regulation is difficult to achieve through the combined inertial control strategy of wind turbines because it greatly depends on control parameters and fluctuates in different scenarios. To cope with disturbance efficiently and quickly in different scenarios and obtain the optimal frequency regulation results, this paper presents an improved combined inertial intelligent control strategy of WT based on contractive autoencoder (CAE) and deep neural network (DNN). This method obtains the optimal parameters for combined inertial control using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, then effectively extracts features from actual data using CAE followed by building a network model to predict the optimal combined inertial control parameters online. To verify and test the proposed method, it is applied in the IEEE 9-bus test system. The simulation results show that the method can obtain optimal control parameters with a faster computational time, good prediction accuracy, and generalization capability.

Multi-dimensional value evaluation for power-to-hydrogen technology based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process

At present, the large-scale development of renewable energy is restricted by the absorption problem. The electric-hydrogen technology becomes a new flexible resource for coupling electric energy, heat energy and other kinds of energy by absorbing abandoned electricity. The lack of flexibility in a power system with high proportion of intermittent renewables can lead to issues like large-scale curtailment of wind and solar, uneconomic energy system operation; even endanger the security of energy supply. As a new flexible resource, power-to-hydrogen technology has received widespread attention and also requires a comprehensive assessment. The electricity-to-hydrogen technology has become a new flexible resource for coupling electric energy, thermal energy and other energy sources by absorbing and discarding electricity. To this end, this paper proposes a multi-dimensional system value evaluation method for the power-to-hydrogen (P2H) technology, the collaborative planning of large-scale electric-hydrogen resources in the new power system is an important issue in this study. The method, based a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, delivers a multi-dimensional index that involves a P2H’s flexibility, ability to consume intermittent renewables, economy and environmental value. The system value of P2H and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated by a use case study. The effects caused by P2H capacity variation are quantified, and an optimal capacity of P2H was found.

Reacting to the Rural Burden: Understanding Opposition to Utility‐Scale Solar Development in Upstate New York☆

AbstractRural landscapes are under increasing development pressure from utility‐scale solar (USS) energy facilities while public attitudes toward these facilities remain poorly documented and understood. This study explores whether opposition to USS in upstate New York is shaped at least in part by perceived rural burden—the idea that rural people and places are unfairly expected to provide new renewable energy in response to urban demand. We explore the idea of rural burden with measures of distributive injustice, procedural injustice, periphery identity, and place attachment. We use a survey (N = 421) of residents of western and northern New York, regions with substantial new and pending USS development. We find that 42 percent of residents oppose USS installations in or near their local communities, 14 percent neither support nor oppose, and 44 percent support. Perceived distributive and procedural injustice, along with place attachment have the strongest effect on opposition, while socio‐demographic attributes, political ideology, and climate change beliefs were insignificant. These findings suggest that opposition to large scale renewable energy development exemplifies a rural environmental justice concern justified for many by the perceived legacy of exploitation in natural resource development.

Place attachment and social barriers to large-scale renewable energy development: a social–ecological systems analysis of a failed wind energy project in the south-central United States

Place attachment and social barriers to large-scale renewable energy development: a social–ecological systems analysis of a failed wind energy project in the south-central United States

Electricity production, power generation structure, and air pollution: A monthly data analysis for 279 cities in China (2015–2019)

Advancing the clean transition of energy structure and reducing air pollution levels are important actions for achieving sustainable urban development. In this study, we analyze the impact of power production and structure on urban air pollution by analyzing the monthly power generation data of 14,570 power plants in 279 prefecture-level cities from January 2015 to December 2019. These data were matched with social, economic, and resource panel data. The study confirmed the positive impact of the increasing proportion of renewable energy on air pollution mitigation, especially when the proportion of renewable power supply exceeds 28.22%. This positive impact has a significant spatial spillover effect, with more air quality improvement seen in East, Central, Southwest, and Northwest China. By designing installation development scenarios for renewable energy, this paper projects the air pollution in major regions of China in 2030. The projection indicates that the PM2.5 concentration in each region could be lower than 35 μg/m3, but the overall proportion of photoelectric and wind power in the primary energy supply remains small. This highlights the need to increase the mitigation of urban air pollution further, by stimulating the innovation of power generation technology, improving power generation efficiency, and encouraging the large-scale development of renewable energy.

Spatial-temporal evolution of pumped hydro energy storage potential on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its future trend under global warming.

Global warming has brought extensive and far-reaching impacts on human life and production. A pumped hydro energy storage contributes to the large-scale development of renewable energy and serves as an important measure to mitigate climate change. Despite considerable efforts in estimating the potential of the pumped hydro energy storage, research gaps in response to global warming remain. In this regard, this study conducts a novel assessment of the pumped hydro energy storage's potential from a dynamic perspective, taking the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the study area. The spatiotemporal evolution of the pumped hydro energy storage's potential over the past few decades (the 1970s-2017) is analyzed, and its response to precipitation is identified innovatively. On this basis, the trend in the future period is further predicted for the first time, which is divided into near, short, medium, and long terms. Results show that the pumped hydro energy storage potential has a generally upward but not monotonic trend, decreasing from the 1970s to 1995 and then rising more dramatically, with slopes of 5548.5 ± 69.2 GWhyr-1 and -238.1 ± 90.4 GWhyr-1. In the majority (68.6 %) of lake basins (68.6 %), changes in precipitation positively contribute to the pumped hydro energy storage potential, resulting in a noticeable growth in the future. Under the representative concentration pathway of 8.5, the mean potential density is projected to rise by 23.4 %, 25.2 %, 28.3 %, and 30.6 % in the near, short, medium, and long terms, respectively. This result indicates that high-intensity greenhouse gas emissions under this scenario will lead to a greater potential for the pumped hydro energy storage in the future.

The Semi-Scheduling Mode of Multi-Energy System Considering Risk–Utility in Day-Ahead Market

The large-scale development of renewable energy has an urgent demand for an adjustable power supply. For a multi-energy system with multiple types of heterogeneous power sources, including wind power, photovoltaic (PV) power, hydropower, thermal power and pumped storage, a novel semi-scheduling mode and a solution method were proposed in this paper. Firstly, based on the load and the reserve demand during the peak load period, the semi-scheduling mode was adopted to determine the start-up combination of thermal power units. Furthermore, by predicting the generating/pumping power, the working state of pumped storage units was determined to realize the independent solution of discrete integer variables. Secondly, the risk–utility function was constructed to quantify the attitude of pumped storage towards the uncertainty of renewable energy output, which completed the quotation and clearing of the pumped storage in the ancillary service market. Finally, by taking the minimum total quotation cost as the objective, the wind–solar–hydro- thermal-pumped storage coordinated (WSHTPC) model was built in the day-ahead market. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model were verified through the simulation of a typical day with different renewable energy penetration rates.

Bidding modes for renewable energy considering electricity-carbon integrated market mechanism based on multi-agent hybrid game

The proposal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals will inevitably promote the large-scale development of renewable energy, and the market mechanism is also being pushed forward to absorb more renewable energy in China. Considering electricity-carbon integrated market mechanism, this paper constructs a hybrid game model to study the evolutionary process of renewable energy generation companies (GENCOs) in market trading by setting up three renewable energy bidding modes. Among them, the leader-follow relationship between GENCOs and the day-ahead electricity market is reflected by the Stackelberg game model, and the bidding behavior of different GENCOs is described by cooperative and non-cooperative game models. The role of different stages for the carbon emissions trading (CET) market on the electricity market is discussed based on the sensitivity analysis. The simulation results show that the bundled sales between wind, photovoltaic and thermal power GENCOs could improve the expected profits of each GENCO and reduce the total carbon emissions. As the proportion of renewable energy in the electricity market increases, the clearing prices will decrease. Meanwhile, the peak-shaving times of thermal power units will raise, and thermal power GENCOs are more willing to participate in the auxiliary service market. Besides, the complete marketization of renewable energy GENCOs will affect the recovery of the initial investment. Moreover, it can be found that lower free carbon quota, higher CET and Chinese certified emission reduction (CCER) prices can effectively guide the electricity market to be cleaner.

Synergistic development of heating system decarbonization transition and large-scale renewable energy penetration: A case study of Beijing

In response to climate change, China has set the target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The large-scale development of renewable energy and the decarbonization transition of the heating system are crucial for achieving this target. Is there a synergistic effect between the heating system's decarbonization transition and the use of large-scale renewable energy sources? What effect does this synergistic development have on the CO₂ emissions and the economic costs of an energy system? This paper conducts a case study of Beijing, China, and designs three technical path scenarios for heating system decarbonization transition in the future, namely, business as usual scenario where existing policies and regulations are applied, the electricity substitution scenario where the traditional fossil fuel heating system is replaced by electric heat pump, and the synergistic development scenario where the existing thermal power units are retrofitted to replace the consumption of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. Using the EnergyPLAN model, the hourly operation of Beijing's power and heating systems under the three scenarios are simulated. The research results are: Firstly, the proportion of local renewable energy will be over 70% in all three scenarios, and in the synergistic development scenario, the electricity and heating demand can be met by 100% renewable energy, reducing CO₂ emissions resulted from fossil fuel combustion; secondly, in view of the real-time match of power supply and demand in the power system, at times renewable energy supply would exceed demand. The rational use of the surplus renewable energy can promote further the synergistic development of decarbonization transition of heating system and renewable energy, reducing the primary energy consumption and CO₂ emissions by over 16% and 28% respectively in the future heating system; Thirdly to improve the economic benefit of a synergistic electric power and heating system, focus should be on the reduction of infrastructure construction cost rather than the reduction of fuel consumption. The proposed method can be extended to regional energy systems with more energy sectors, and can be used to formulate decarbonization transition schemes for industry, agriculture, etc.

Building a ‘Fair and Fast’ energy transition? Renewable energy employment, skill shortages and social licence in regional areas

Within techno-economic models for climate and energy scenarios, labour is assumed to be available just-in-time – even as cost-optimisation electricity system modelling typically generates development profiles with sharp peaks and troughs which would make labour supply and management very challenging. Local job creation is often framed as a key benefit for regional communities and important for building social licence in host regions to enable rapid, large-scale renewable energy development. Yet, whilst there is a large body of studies projecting employment volumes under climate and energy transition scenarios, there has been limited empirical research on the challenges, opportunities and solutions for labour supply and workforce development within local and regional labour markets.Through a study of five renewable energy zones being established within an electricity system dominated by coal generation in New South Wales (Australia), our study contributes to the understanding of the employment constraints that could emerge and need to be addressed for a ‘fair and fast’ energy transition. As the global transition to renewable energy accelerates, local workforce development will become more important as competition for labour intensifies. However, significant barriers to building a regional workforce for renewable energy are identified including ‘boom-bust’ development cycles, the depth of regional labour markets in key occupations, competition for labour across inter-connected sectors, the concentration of socially disadvantaged communities in under-employed populations and demographic changes, especially population ageing.Based on the case study, four key policy implications are identified for other jurisdictions. Firstly, ‘smoothing’ the development profile to avoid boom-bust cycles can be implemented consistent with renewable energy targets aligned with the Paris Climate agreement. Secondly, there needs to be a coordinated approach between government, industry and training providers to build training capacity – market-led approaches are unlikely to work for renewable energy in regional areas. Thirdly, training and employment pathways need to be built for diverse labour market segments to develop a regional workforce, including disadvantaged groups outside the workforce. Fourthly, renewable energy should be managed as part of an ‘ecosystem’ to develop a workforce that can move between renewable energy and adjacent sectors such as resources, infrastructure and manufacturing.

Resolving the conflict of greens: A GIS-based and participatory least-conflict siting framework for solar energy development in southwest Taiwan

Transitioning to renewable energy is vital to reduce greenhouse gasses and mitigate climate change. As large-scale renewable energy development expands, more land use conflicts are arising between renewable energy development, ecological conservation, and local communities. Spatial planning methods are becoming more widely used to address such conflicts, however, they often lack local community input and values. In this study, we develop a Participatory Least Conflict Solar Energy Siting Framework based on energy justice theory which uses place-based stakeholder engagement paired with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria decision making. We operationalize a case study in Southwestern Taiwan to identify and evaluate suitable solar development sites and demonstrate how the framework can be used. The results of our AHP surveys show a general consensus that protecting the natural environment is important as the top three prioritized factors: “Avoid Environmental Protected Land”, with a priority of 20.8%, “Avoid Other Important Natural Areas”, with a priority of 11.9%, and “Avoid Other Natural Areas” with a priority of 8.2%. In addition, if only 12% of the land with medium to high suitability are developed for solar energy generation, Tainan City and Chiayi County alone could support the Taiwan government's solar development goal of 20 GW of installed solar capacity for the entire country by 2025. Our study also reveals that the use of participatory methods in site evaluation and final site design is important to ensure true suitability with local ecological, social, and economic systems. This methodology helps to normalize a more holistic multi-goal strategy of solar development that recognizes renewable energy infrastructure as part of a social-ecological-technical systems and Climate Justice. We suggest this framework be used to address the spatial mismatch between national level policy and local implementation that supports place-based renewable energy collocation for energy democracy and community ownership, and develop policy and regulations to support a just transition toward carbon neutrality.

A Study of Carbon Trading Markets to Promote Large-Scale Development of Renewable Energy

A Study of Carbon Trading Markets to Promote Large-Scale Development of Renewable Energy

Sun, wind or water? Public support for large-scale renewable energy development in Canada

ABSTRACT Public acceptance is one important aspect of broader social acceptability of renewable energy. Using a national, representative survey dataset of Canadian citizens (n = 1407), we examine public support for three infrastructure-scale renewables: large hydropower, wind farms, and solar farms. Few studies compare acceptance of multiple technologies or acceptance across sub-national regions. Due to differing levels of historical and current development of energy technologies, the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec provide a unique case for comparison. At the national level, results demonstrate strong support and high levels of familiarity for these renewable technologies, but limited belief they will lower greenhouse gas emissions. Lower levels of support for wind and hydro technologies were seen in provinces that recently experienced development. Using regression analysis, we found support for each of the technologies was influenced by a different set of factors. Important influencing factors included environmental and climate concern, familiarity with the technology, personal values, political affiliation, gender, age and education.

Resolving the Conflict of Greens: A GIS-Based and Participatory Least-Conflict Sitting Framework for Solar Energy Development in Southwest Taiwan

Transitions to renewable energy is vital in reducing greenhouse gases and building a sustainable future. As large-scale renewable energy development expands, more land use conflicts are arising. Such conflicts are especially difficult in Taiwan, where the renewable energy goal is ambitious and land availability is limited. In this study, we develop a Participatory Least Conflict Solar Siting Framework which uses place-based stakeholder engagement paired with Analytical Hierarchy Process and Geographic Information System based multi-criteria decision making to identify suitable solar development sites. We use a case study to demonstrate how the framework can be used. The results show that if only 12% of the land with medium to high suitability are developed for solar energy generation, Tainan City and Chiayi County alone could support the government’s solar development goal for the entirety of Taiwan by 2025. Our study also reveals that the use of participatory methods in site evaluation and final site design is important to ensure true suitability. We suggest this framework be used to address the spatial mismatch between national level policy and local implementation, promote a participatory approach that supports place-based renewable energy collocation, and develop policy and regulations to support a just transition toward carbon neutrality.

Engineering practices for the integration of large-scale renewable energy VSC-HVDC systems

With the continuous development of power electronic devices, intelligent control systems, and other technologies, the voltage level and transmission capacity of voltage source converter (VSC)-high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology will continue to increase, while the system losses and costs will gradually decrease. Therefore, it can be foreseen that VSC-HVDC transmission technology will be more widely applied in future large-scale renewable energy development projects. Adopting VSC-HVDC transmission technology can be used to overcome issues encountered by large-scale renewable energy transmission and integration projects, such as a weak local power grid, lack of support for synchronous power supply, and insufficient accommodation capacity. However, this solution also faces many technical challenges because of the differences between renewable energy and traditional synchronous power generation systems. Based on actual engineering practices that are used worldwide, this article analyzes the technical challenges encountered by integrating large-scale renewable energy systems that adopt the use of VSC-HVDC technology, while aiming to provide support for future research and engineering projects related to VSC-HVDC-based large-scale renewable energy integration projects.

Introduction and prospect of integrated energy service platform in industrial parks

As a modern industrial division of labor and production area that adapts to market competition and industrial upgrading, the industrial park is a generation model for the country to actively plan and promote development. The integrated energy system of industrial parks is of great significance for improving energy efficiency, promoting large-scale development of renewable energy, improving the utilization of social infrastructure and energy supply, and achieving energy conservation and emission reduction targets. The combination of industrial parks and integrated energy service platform technologies can realize the coordinated operation and resource sharing of various energy systems, meet the individual needs of campus users, and provide diversified services for system maintainers, park managers, enterprises, and households. Based on the summary of the characteristics of the campus-type energy Internet, the paper studies the key technologies of its integrated energy service platform. The key technologies of information collection, source-charge prediction, multi-energy coordination scheduling and advanced application services of the company’s latest integrated energy service platform are introduced, and suggestions for the development of integrated energy service platform in the park are put forward.

Dispatching optimization model of gas-electricity virtual power plant considering uncertainty based on robust stochastic optimization theory

With the rapid development of renewable energy, virtual power plant technology has gradually become a key technology to solve the large-scale development of renewable energy. This paper focuses on the stochastic dispatching optimization of gas-electric virtual power plant (GVPP). Based on this, wind power plant, photovoltaic power generation and convention gas turbines are used as the power generation side of GVPP. Power-to-gas (P2G) equipment and gas storage tank can realize the conversion and storage of electricity-gas energy. Price based demand response and incentive based demand response are introduced into the terminal load side to regulate the user’s electricity consumption behavior. GVPP bilaterally connects power network and natural gas network, which realizes the bidirectional flow of electricity-gas energy. Firstly, taking the maximization of economic benefits as the objective function, combined with the constraints of power balance, system reserve and so on, a dispatching optimization model of GVPP participating in multi-energy markets is constructed to determine the operation strategy. Secondly, wind, solar and other clean energy have the characteristics of random and fluctuation, which threaten the stable operation of the system. Therefore, a stochastic dispatching optimization model of GVPP considering wind and solar uncertainty is established based on robust stochastic optimization theory. Thirdly, the evaluation indicators of GVPP operation is determined, which can comprehensively evaluate the economic benefits, environmental benefits and system operation of virtual power plant. Finally, in order to verify the validity and feasibility of the model, a virtual power plant is selected for example analysis. The results show that: (1) After the implementation of price based demand response and incentive based demand response, the system load variance changes from 0.03 to 0.013. Through the comparison of load curves, it is found that demand response can play a role of peak-shaving and valley-filling and smooth the power load curve; (2) Stochastic optimization theory can overcome the uncertainty of wind and solar by setting different robust coefficients Γ which reflects the ability of the system to withstand risks; (3) The optimization effect after introducing the P2G subsystem makes the amount of abandoned clean energy close to zero. The operation risk of system is reduced, and the carbon emissions are reduced by 370 m3 too. The market space is expanded from electricity market mainly to natural gas market and carbon trading market.

Research on benefit evaluation method of integrated energy system project based on combination weight

The construction of integrated energy system contributes to the large-scale development of renewable energy and improves the flexibility and safety of social energy supply. However, the current integrated energy system project benefit evaluation index system is still not perfect, lacking the standard and can hardly be applied to the actual project evaluation. In view of these problems, this paper constructs a universally applicable integrated energy system project benefit evaluation index system named ‘3E1F’, evaluating benefits from four aspects which are energy efficiency, economic benefit, environment benefit and function benefit. The index weight is established by the combination of AHP-entropy weight method. The effectiveness and feasibility of the benefit evaluation index system and calculation method are verified by actual cases. Finally, combined with the actual cases and the main problems of the current integrated energy system project construction, this paper puts forward several optimization suggestions for improving the efficiency of the integrated energy system project.