By Fernando Nuno / Published on Tue, 2010-07-27 12:25
A free series of six webinars will be delivered to provide the required knowledge to design a high performance photovoltaic (PV) installation, entering into economic evaluation and project cash-flow. Additionally, very practical aspects such as the construction, start-up, quality management and testing will be reviewed. Plant operation is described in detail, with special attention paid to control systems, monitoring and information management.
Read full story
By Fernando Nuno / Published on Sat, 2010-01-16 22:25
Over-sizing the cross section of a cable beyond the result of voltage and current theoretical calculations is, in most of cases, a worthwhile investment that is easily amortised by the electricity bill savings (reduction of Joule losses). In the case of a photovoltaic (PV) installation, the allocated price for energy (feed-in tariff) is much higher than the market price, getting amortised much faster.
Together with an improved profitability of the project, there are additional advantages when using bigger cable sections:
Read full story
By HDK / Published on Wed, 2009-09-09 11:32
Wind power forecast uncertainty raises concerns of the impact of wind power on power system and electricity market operations. This research project uses an optimal power flow (OPF) model in a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) framework to estimate the cost impacts from the uncertainty in wind farm output.
Read full story
By HDK / Published on Sat, 2009-09-05 09:30
In this project, we propose a new methodological framework for assessing the economic impact of transmission investment. This framework improves on the current state of art by explicitly modeling strategic responses of generators to transmission investments. Using an economic measure of social benefit, results show that transmission planning should lead rather than follow generation investments. As a result, transmission investments should be treated as infrastructure development in the same general way that roadway investments are used for regional development.
Read full story
By HDK / Published on Wed, 2009-08-05 15:26
Customers want a reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity supply. Over the years the emphasis between these three items have been shifted.
What do you expect that customers will value most in the future electricity supply? We welcome your comments and votes on this question.
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-06-23 05:30
Should the case of Spain cause worries?
Two recent decisions by the Spanish government regarding wind energy have highlighted concerns about the affordability of this sector.
The first decision was to create a special fund for the €10 billion government deficit originating from wind energy incentives. The second decision was to end the complete autonomy of the regions in licensing wind projects. These decisions were taken to avoid exceeding the target capacity of 20,155 MW under the government incentives currently in force. Via agreements with the regions, the wind industry was already projecting 41,000 MW. Such a figure would be unaffordable for the government if the current regimen of incentives is left in place. The new national registration of wind projects will also force wind developers to give priority to the most profitable wind sites nationwide, instead of considering projects only on a regional basis.
The Spanish government’s measures provoked a lively discussion on Power Globe and other Internet forums. Can Spain still be regarded as a textbook example of renewable energy promotion, or is the country on the edge of a bankruptcy due to excessive investments in wind?
Read full story
By HDK / Published on Thu, 2009-05-28 09:37
Oikonomou V., SOM, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Becchis F., Prof., Environmental Economics, University of East Piedmont, Italy
Russolillo D., Fondazione per l’Ambiente “T. Fenoglio”, Torino, Italy
Read full story
By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Thu, 2009-05-14 07:53
This PhD Thesis Report is courtesy of Joseph Michael Marriott, Carnegie Mellon University
The electricity industry is extremely important to both our economy and our environment: we would like to examine the economic, environmental and policy implications of both future electricity technologies and the interaction of this industry with the rest of the economy. However, the tools which currently exist to analyse the potential impacts are either too complex or too aggregated to provide this type of information.
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-04-28 16:09
A report by the World Economic Forum
The Investors Community at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos of January 2008 mandated a Green Investing report. This report was to be presented at the next Annual Meeting in January 2009. The remit of the report was to explore the potential engagement by leading investors in addressing climate change.
Huge investments required
The report starts by sketching the scale of the challenge. It points out that green energy is often considered a luxury. Nevertheless, a huge volume of investment will be required to avoid catastrophic climate change and ensure our future energy security. Various experts all place the estimated cost in the range of US$500 billion per year.
Fortunately, the investment in green energy in the past five years has already been substantial. According to the report, 'Clean energy technologies are becoming increasingly cost-competitive with fossil-based energy. A carbon price will eventually level the playing field, but in the meantime clean energy solutions require support from policy makers.'
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2009-01-20 15:13
The ultimate objective of the NEEDS Integrated Project is to evaluate the full costs and benefits (i.e. direct + external) of energy policies and of future energy systems, both at the level of individual countries and for the enlarged EU as a whole.
In this context, NEEDS refines and develops the externalities methodology already set up in the ExternE project, through an ambitious attempt to develop, implement and test an original framework of analysis to assess the long term sustainability of energy technology options and policies.
Read full story
By Jonathan Manson / Published on Mon, 2009-01-12 16:45
By Jonathan Manson and Roman Targosz
Since the end of the 1990s the European Copper Institute [ECI] has been concerned about the impact experienced by commerce and industry of the changing nature of the energy demands organisations face as a result of equipment technological advances, the increasing need o build in resilience into their electrical power installations and the presumed mounting costs of not taking either adequate preventative or reactive action to accommodate the changes.
After some preliminary small scale studies into the impact of poor power quality on such organisations and as the empirical but anecdotal evidence mounted being discussed at length among the growing membership of the Leonardo Power Quality Initiative [LPQI*], so ECI decided to mount an extensive research project into what the impacts were on key energy suing industrial sectors of their not coping with poor power quality.
The project itself took over two years to complete and its results have been exposed in 2007 to a broad technical academic community with a view to securing their support and agreement for this work, the findings of which, whilst not surprising to us, make very negative reading in terms of the avoidable wastage and economic losses incurred by these industrial sectors at a time when energy and resource efficiency are the demands of today. Apply this to more commercial interpretation and it is clear that the EU’s competitive position is also unnecessarily undermined asa a result of this wastage.
This report presents the European PQ Survey – it is clear that the industrial sectors interviewed annually lose upwards of €150 billion as a direct result of their electrical power installations not being sufficiently reliable and resilient for today’s and future operating demands.
The causes of these losses are not new nor are the Power Quality [PQ] phenomena involved. What was both surprising as well as concerning was and we suspect is still the relative lack of analysis and measurement that take place among these power critical industries to be able to know what is causing these damaging interruptions to their operations.
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2008-12-30 06:30
In the second half of 2008, the global financial crisis has dominated the news media. What will be the effect of this crisis on the sustainable energy market? Will it bring this young market to a standstill, or will it bring about new opportunities? The following is an attempt to group the pessimistic and the optimistic arguments.
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-28 05:30
An ethical as well as an economic question
If we continue business-as-usual, climate change — according to both the worst prognoses and the more optimistic ones — will confront humanity with serious consequences and a high price tag. However, the cost to society of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is also high. So inevitably, the question arises: what we should do? Pay today for mitigating climate change or pay later to deal with its consequences?
This question is most often presented as a mere economic problem. Not so, says John Broom in the Scientific American article 'The ethics of climate change'. The answer, he maintains, also entails ethical decisions.
John Broom refers to the 'Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change' by Nicolas Stern and the UK Treasury, and to the studies of William Nordhaus at Yale University. While Stern concludes that urgent action to control Greenhouse Gas emissions is required, Nordhaus’s position is that the need to act is not acute. Broom identifies and explains the premises at the basis of this contradictory outcome.
Read full story
By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-05-26 05:00
ACEEE argues in a new report that Energy Efficiency must be more visible, and it is easy to agree. Energy Efficiency is discussed in most policy debates as the counterbalance to more supply, but in reality it is more difficult than that. Energy Efficiency is often foregone because of its invisibility, which is a pity since energy efficiency is the most profitable and least risky of all investments you can make as the ACEEE report shows (see figure below).
Read full story
By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-05-19 05:00
“The market is a good servant but a bad master”. That is at least the old way of saying has it. Often attributed to Vaclav Havel, but also to the former Danish Energy minister Svend Auken. Whoever is to take credit for this saying, they come to mind when reading The Economist, where the issue is brought up; why is such a good product as energy efficiency so scarcely used? The low-hanging fruit, profitable and good for the environment, is just not picked.
The article arrives at the usual answer that there are some barriers. Well known and researched in detail, but still there and still hindering. So, is that all? Are we doomed to being inefficient and seeing the low-hanging fruit rot before our eyes instead of it being picked and enjoyed? If the market cannot master and cannot deliver, could there be something else that fails us?
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2008-05-14 09:23
By F J Santiago et al
Many topics are arisen nowadays in an effort to mitigate the constraints appearing on the energetic supply issue. One of them is the idea of concentrate the generation and consumption in certain areas defined as μGrids. All, reliability, quality of supply, energetic efficiency, economic profitability…, must be considered as a reality on the development of this new concept.
Read full story
By David Chapman / Published on Tue, 2008-05-13 15:51
Distributed Generation, (DG), especially when the fuel is renewable, is seen as a major tool in the effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels to meet agreed environmental targets, with the added benefit of increased energy security. To promote interest and investment, energy policy makers are seeking to promote DG in a variety of ways.
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2008-04-30 19:18
Decentralised production means greater stability problems for the electricity system. This paper investigates a wide range of storage solutions. Rather than just looking at storage capacity or economics, it considers the very different technical characteristics of storage options in terms of available power, efficiency, durability and reliability.
Read full story
