By Fernando Nuno / Published on Tue, 2009-06-02 11:12
On the January 23, 2008 the European Commission agreed on a far-reaching package of proposals that will deliver the European Council's commitments to fight climate change and promote RE. With the publication of this Climate Action Plan and its several targets, the EU wants to show global leadership in this area.
This report provides an overview of the Kyoto-targets and the objectives of energy from RES in final energy consumption in 2020.
Read full story
By Fernando Nuno / Published on Mon, 2009-04-27 17:15
The Energy Efficiency Action Plan has set an indicative goal of reducing energy consumption by 20% by 2020. It suggests several initiatives to improve energy efficiency in the coming years. Network loss reduction in the power systems is one of these initiatives. This issue was discussed in the recent consultation paper “Treatment of Losses by Network Operators” published by the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG).
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2009-02-25 12:22
The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) just published its 4th Benchmarking Report on the Quality of Electricity Supply. It deals with three types of electricity quality: the speed and accuracy with which electricity customer requests are handled (commercial quality); the availability of electricity (continuity); and its technical properties (voltage quality).
Lord Mogg, CEER President, said, “In order to ensure that quality is not compromised as electricity companies seek to cut costs, more and more regulators have introduced electricity quality incentive/penalty regimes.”
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Mon, 2009-02-02 20:37
This status report examines the support schemes in place across Europe. It found that fiscal incentives such as tax reductions or exemptions are often used to complement the main support scheme which are feed-in tariffs or (to a lesser extent) quotas with tradeable certificates. The report identifies barriers to the further deployment of renewables and assesses the extent to which renewables have been successful in replacing conventional generation in the fuel mix.
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Sat, 2009-01-17 12:06
The Department of Energy's (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC) has released three reports prepared for the Secretary of Energy's consideration. These reports review challenges facing DOE and the Nation in many important electricity areas, and include recommendations for policy and program initiatives. They address issues surrounding generation and transmission adequacy, energy efficiency and demand response, deployment of energy storage technologies, and deployment of smart grid technologies. The EAC was chartered by Secretary Samuel W.
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 Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2008-06-10 12:32
WP2: Review and analysis of national and regional certificate schemes
- Review and analysis of national and regional certificate schemes
Monique Voogt, Maxim Luttmer, Erika de Visser - ECOFYS
- WP2 Summary Report
Monique Voogt, Maxim Luttmer, Erika de Visser - ECOFYS
WP3.1: White Certificate scheme and European Emission Trading System
- White Certificate Schemes and European Emission Trading System
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2007-11-22 08:30
And is already here in parts of California
The role of solar power is still negligible in the world’s overall energy system. It accounts for a mere 0.3 per cent of the energy production in Germany and even less in the rest of the world. According to industry leaders, energy producers are waiting for price parity with fossil fuels before making the necessarily massive investments. They simply cannot rely on politically fickle subsidies in their long term planning.
Until recently, this so-called grid parity still seemed very far away. Solar electricity was calculated to be at least five times as expensive as fossil fuels. Today however, new reports claim that in the sunny parts of the United States, Japan, and southern Europe, parity with fossil fuels could very well be reached by 2012. Even more, in certain parts of the State of California, grid parity is already reality.
Read full story
By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Wed, 2007-11-07 17:34
Compared to current levels, world demand will grow by more than 50% until 2030 – this is one of the main conclusions of the International Energy Agency published today in the World Energy Outlook 2007 report.
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Fri, 2007-09-21 11:20
A few existing data center companies have already switched to a DC distribution architecture in one form or another and have reported their findings in the literature. One example is Data393, a data center company based in Denver, Colorado, USA, which has reported a reduction in power consumption of nearly 20% due to the change to DC distribution [5].
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Mon, 2007-08-27 07:30
… and the role of power utility companies
If we are to build a sustainable energy future for Europe, a key role will be reserved for electricity. Its simplicity and cleanliness at the point of use, combined with the feasibility of clean power generation, make it a preferred energy carrier.
That is the main conclusion of Eurelectric’s study 'The role of electricity'. A summary of that paper was released in March 2007. While it is easy to agree with the general conclusion, the study would gain relevance if it did not limit itself to advocating only those technologies in which power utility companies play a key role.
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2007-08-21 23:31
Analysis of trends and issues in the financing of renewable energy and energy efficiency in OECD and developing countries
Authors: C. Greenwood; A. Hohler; M. Liebreich
Publisher: United Nations [UN] Environment Programme, 2007
This report presents the current status of sustainable energy development, including the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors. The information is intended to provide financiers and policy makers with an overview of the status of the sustainable energy market to help them weigh their commitments to the sector. Key findings that emerge from the report include:
Read full story
By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Fri, 2007-08-03 07:30
The need for integrating energy development and environmental imperatives
Last April, the Canadian Federal Government released the Draft Regulatory Framework for Air Emissions (see recent blog post). In this document, the Government proposed restrictions on Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and certain other kinds of emissions. According to a recent report by The Conference Board of Canada, an independent research and consultancy agency, emission policies need to be integrated with general energy policies.
The report by the Conference Board describes how in the past, Canadian energy development strategies focused on low-cost electric power, crude oil, and accessible energy resources. These strategies led to a strong energy industry that has contributed to Canadian prosperity, but today, the world’s appetite for cheap energy is counterbalanced by climate change concerns and GHG emission restrictions. The country’s current energy vision must reflect these changes. It should integrate environmental imperatives, instead of developing energy and environmental policies separately.
Read full story
By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Wed, 2007-08-01 18:29
The population of distribution transformers in Europe is about 4,5 million units. The annual market; new investments and replacement, is estimated at about 3% of existing stock of units.
Read full story
By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Sun, 2007-07-22 11:54
As the sixth report in its 'Building America Best Practice Series', the US Department of Energy published a guide on using solar thermal and PV systems (attention: large pdf file!) in combination with good insulation as a best practice for zero-energy homes.
The term 'zero-energy home' is used loosely in the report to mean houses with at least 50% reduced utility bills compared to standard practice.
The combination of energy efficiency with solar is cost effective compared to conventional homes as the reduction in energy bills is larger than the increased mortgage payments from the additional investment. This is a bit misleading though, since insulation will produce the largest part of the cost savings, whereas solar consumes most of the additional investment. Still, it may make sense to a home owner to use part of the cost savings from good insulation to help finance solar technologies.
Read full story
