Renewable Energy Sources For Electricity Generation Research Articles

Assessing the role of fluctuating renewables in energy transition: Methodologies and tools

Due to the environmental impacts brought by current energy schemes, the energy transition, a new paradigm shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, has been widely accepted and is being realized through collective international, regional, and local efforts. Electricity, as the most direct and effective use of renewable energy sources (RES), plays a key role in the energy transition. In this paper, we first discuss a viable pathway to energy transition through the electricity triangle, highlighting the role of RES in electricity generation. Further, we propose methodologies for the planning of wind and solar PV, as well as how to address their uncertainty in generation expansion problems. Finally, by using a web-based tool, “RES-PLAT”11https://res-plat.est.polito.it., we demonstrate the scheme in a case study in Egypt, which evaluates the impacts and benefits of a large-scale RES expansion.22The short version of the paper was presented at Applied Energy Symposium: MIT A+ B, August 13–14, Boston. This paper is a substantial extension of the short version of the conference paper.

Analyzing Renewable Energy Sources of a Developing Country for Sustainable Development: An Integrated Fuzzy Based-Decision Methodology

Global human pollutant activities have raised greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which have directly affected the climate. Fossil fuel-based energy has brought a negative impact on the environment and is considered one of the largest sources of GHG emissions. It is envisaged that GHG emissions will increase in the future due to rapid population growth and industrialization. Thus, it is imperative to mitigate climate variability and reduce GHGs by adopting renewable energy (RE) sources for electricity generation. In this regard, the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) process would serve the purpose of framing out energy policy to analyze these environmentally friendly energy sources. This study uses an integrated decision methodology—a combination of Delphi, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), and the fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment (FWASPAS)—for the adoption of RE sources for electricity generation in Turkey. Initially, the study identified five main criteria and seventeen sub-criteria using the Delphi method. Then, the FAHP method was used to evaluate and rank the main criteria and sub-criteria. Finally, the FWASPAS method was used to assess and prioritize five major RE sources for electricity generation. The FAHP analysis indicated that political criteria are the most influential, followed by economic and technical criteria. Further, the FWASPAS method revealed that wind energy is the most significant option for electricity generation. This decision-making process can help the energy planners to utilize RE sources for sustainable development.

Morocco\u2019s sustainable energy transition and the role of financing costs: a participatory electricity system modeling approach

BackgroundMorocco is facing major challenges in terms of its future energy supply and demand. Specifically, the country is confronted with rising electricity demand, which in turn will lead to higher fossil fuel import dependency and carbon emissions. Recognizing these challenges, Morocco has set ambitious targets for the deployment of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-E). The realization of these targets will lead to a fundamental transition of the Moroccan electricity sector and requires substantial public and private investment. However, different risks constitute barriers for private RES-E investments and lead to high financing costs, which may eventually discourage capital-intensive RES-E projects.MethodologyWhile the existing literature has mainly focused on assessing the impact of financing costs on the economic competitiveness of individual technologies, the aim of this research is to assess the techno-economic feasibility of different electricity generation portfolios. To recognize the social dimension of the sustainable energy system transition, the electricity scenarios for Morocco have been jointly developed with stakeholders in a scenario building workshop in Rabat, employing a downscaled version of the open source electricity market model renpassG!S, augmented by a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) module.ResultsIn the stakeholder workshop, four different electricity scenarios for Morocco were co-developed. Each of these scenarios describes a consensual and technologically feasible future development path for the Moroccan energy system up to 2050, and comprises conventional fossil fuel-based technologies, as well as RES-E technologies in varying shares. Employing the downscaled renpassG!S model, we find that total system costs, as well as average levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) can be reduced substantially with low-cost financing.ConclusionsOur results indicate that de-risking RES-E investments can lead to cost competitiveness of a 100% RES-E-based electricity system with mixed-technology scenarios at marked financing costs. Therefore, we identify specific de-risking recommendations for Moroccan energy policymaking. In addition, we argue that participatory scenario modeling enables a better understanding of the risk perceptions of stakeholders, and can eventually contribute to increasing the political feasibility of sustainable energy transition pathways.

The perspectives for the use of hydrogen for electricity storage considering the foreign experience

Over the last years, the European Union has seen a rapid increase in installed capacity of generating units based on renewable energy sources (RES). The most significant increase in installed capacity was recorded in 2015, in wind farms and solar PV installations. One of the most serious is the volatile character of RES on a time basis. Therefore, for a further expected increase in the use of RES and their effectiveness improvements, investments are needed allowing for electricity to be stored. One of the electricity storage options is to use excess electricity in order to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Although this process plays a marginal role in obtaining hydrogen on a worldwide basis due to high costs, experience in recent years has shown that periodically low (negative) electricity prices, developing on the power exchanges in the situation where there is surplus electricity available, affect economic requirements for hydrogen production technologies. The paper shows activities undertaken by European countries (mainly Germany) aiming at making it possible for hydrogen to be stored in the natural gas grids. A particular attention is given to material resource issues and possible operational problems that might arise while blending natural gas with hydrogen into the grid. The experiences of selected European countries are of particular interest from the Polish perspective, having regard to significant increase of RES in electricity generation during the last few years and adopted objectives for the growing importance of RES in the Poland’s energy balance.

Cost/benefit analysis of transmission grid expansion to enable further integration of renewable electricity generation in Austria

This paper elaborates on the costs and benefits of expanding the Austrian transmission system and the implementation of innovative grid-impacting technologies (e.g. flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS), dynamic line rating (DLR)) to support further integration of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-E). Therefore, a fundamental market model has been developed - respecting DC load flows - and applied for analysing different future scenarios, notably for the time horizon 2020, 2030 and 2050. Up to 2020 and 2030, special focus is put on the finalisation of the so-called “380 kV-level transmission ring” in Austria to enable enhanced RES-E integration. The results confirm that transmission power line expansion in the states of Salzburg and Carinthia is important to connect imports from Germany with pumped hydro storage capacities, on the one hand, and the wind farms in the east with the pumped hydro storages in the western part of Austria, on the other hand. For 2050, the results indicate that the implementation of FACTS and DLR can reduce RES-E curtailment significantly.

Marginal share of renewable energy sources of variable electricity generation: A contribution to the concept definition

Technology development is a keystone within the efforts toward enabling longer duration of the world fossil energy resources. The past development and the technologies applied, cause huge emissions of СО2 that must be significantly reduced. Increased usage of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-e) contributes essentially to the reduction of CO2, but on the other hand, under current conditions of feed-in priority reduces also the market for the electricity from fossil fuelled power plants (FFPP). The other possibility for reduction of CO2 emissions is to apply carbon capture and storage technologies as a part of overall FFPP technologies. A hypothesis presented in this paper is that there is a marginal share of RES variable electricity in overall annual electricity supply after which further increase of RES-e participation produces higher average electricity generated cost, than in the case of CO2 emission reduction by applying CCS technologies. The presented work confirms this hypothesis. Value of the marginal share depends to the price of RES-e feed-in. With the price span from 13.5 to 7.5€c/kWh, the marginal share is under 50%.

The deployment of electricity generation from renewable energies in Germany and Spain: A comparative analysis based on a simple model

The fulfilment of the aims set by the European Union in the deployment of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-E) has counted and must continue to count on public funding from the member states, which promote private investment in this type of facilities. This funding guarantees a cost-oriented remuneration which, being higher than the market price means an additional cost to the electricity system. With the aim of minimizing the economic impact as the weight of RES-E in the electricity mix increases, the generation costs of renewable units must approach those of the market, which are expected to increase according to the fossil fuel price forecasts. The present study analyzes both the RES-E development and deployment in Spain and Germany, two pioneering countries worldwide and with very similar electricity systems. Based on their national action plans and a simple model, this analysis approaches the RES-E surcharge, comparing and contrasting the results obtained in both countries.

Developing renewable energy supply in Queensland, Australia: A study of the barriers, targets, policies and actions

Abstract The Australian Government has set an ambitious target that at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs will be met by Renewable Energy (RE) sources by 2020. Given the limited use of RE sources for electricity generation, this national Renewable Energy Target (RET) leaves state, territory and municipal governments in a challenging policy position. In this article, we examine the Australian state of Queensland where RE provides approximately 4 per cent of the region’s electricity supplies. The research utilizes stakeholder theory to examine the developmental barriers, targets, policies and actions identified by firms and stakeholder organizations in the RE industry sector. The results from our analysis show that RE developments face a range of socio-technical barriers that require timely actions in the areas of financial incentives, infrastructure enhancement, regulation reform, community-centred developments, technology and workforce investments, and information and education programs. Also, in the context of RE planning, while the national RET is the preferred setting, the differences between Queensland’s RE installed generation capacity and electricity supply targets require clarification and agreement.

Renewable energy sources in European energy supply and interactions with emission trading

This paper presents a model-based approach, which allows to determine the optimised structure and operation of the EU-15 electricity supply under different political and economic framework conditions, with a focus on the integration of renewable energy sources for electricity generation (RES-E) in the EU-15 countries. The approach is designed to take into account the characteristics of power production from both renewable and conventional sources, including the technological and economic characteristics of existing plants as well as those of future capacity expansion options. Beyond that, fuel supply structures are modelled, as well as the international markets for power and CO 2-certificates with their restrictions. Thus, a profound evaluation of the exploitation of mid-term renewable potentials and an assessment of the market penetration of the various renewable power generation technologies under the (normative) premise of a cost-optimised evolution of the power system becomes possible. Results show that a promotion of renewable energies reduces the scarcity of CO 2-emission allowances and thus lowers marginal costs of CO 2 reduction up to 30% in 2030. Despite the higher overall costs, a diversification of the energy resource base by RES-E use is observed, as primarily natural gas and nuclear fuels are replaced.

THE SOCIAL EFFICIENCY OF INSTRUMENTS FOR THE PROMOTION OF RENEWABLE ENERGIES IN THE LIBERALISED POWER INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT**** Résumé en fin d'article; Zusammenfassung am Ende des Artikels; resumen al fin del artículo. : This paper compares the social efficiency of the two main regulatory instruments used to promote renewable energy sources in electricity generation (RES-E), taking into consideration their role in promoting the preservation of the climate. They are based on a purchase obligation and act either by price (feed-in tariffs) or by quantity (RES-E quotas). In their reference design, the instruments show different performances in several dimensions: market incentives intensity, control of the cost for consumers, safeguards of RES-E investments, and conformity with the new market regime of the electricity industry. The comparison shows that neither instrument offers an optimal solution in each of these dimensions. In particular, the intrinsic qualities of the quotas instrument that are put forward to mandate its adoption by the EU members are overestimated. A government will thus select an instrument in accordance with the relative importance of its objectives: environmental policy versus cost control by market pressure.

05/02641 Additional renewable energy growth through small-scale community orientated energy policies

The entry of Poland into the European Union will require significant adjustment processes in the energy sector. This paper gives an overview of the current electricity-industry restructuring approaches employed in the European Union and Poland, with a focus on the promotion of the use of renewable-energy sources for electricity generation, and it assesses the policy implications of the accession of Poland into the European Union.

Experience Curves Vs Dynamic Cost-Resource Curves and Their Impact on the Assessment of the Future Development of Renewables

The recent development of several Renewable Energy Sources for electricity generation (RES-E) is characterised by decreasing investment costs and limited resources. In this paper we analyse the ambiguous role of these two effects and the consequences for deriving effective promotion policies for RES-E. Dynamic costresource curves will be derived which combine both approaches. They represent a tool to assist policy makers in deriving efficient and effective promotion instruments. By its application results can be gained with respect to both costs (i.e. efficiency) and penetration (i.e. effectiveness). Due to the combined consideration of resource restrictions and dynamic cost developments, dynamic cost-resource curves assist in deriving the optimal time-path for policy instruments.

Policies for the promotion of renewable energy in Poland

The entry of Poland into the European Union will require significant adjustment processes in the energy sector. This paper gives an overview of the current electricity-industry restructuring approaches employed in the European Union and Poland, with a focus on the promotion of the use of renewable-energy sources for electricity generation, and it assesses the policy implications of the accession of Poland into the European Union.