By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-10-20 05:30
Avoiding a high administrative burden
The Australian government’s Department of Climate Change has created a new system of Renewable Energy Credits (REC) for systems up to 1.5 kW. Those small systems are mainly comprised of PV systems, along with small wind and hydroelectric installations. The problem with the former Renewable Energy Certificates system was that the resulting administrative burden for such small systems was too high and the resulting income too low to result in a successful incentive.
In the new RECs system, the energy production is not measured but estimated. The certificates are paid for in advance, at the time the system is purchased, for a lifetime of fifteen years. The production estimation is based on standard figures of mean solar irradiation in the local region. To provide an extra incentive for small systems, this figure is multiplied by 5 for systems installed between June 2009 and June 2012. This multiplier will decrease gradually after 2012 and be set at 1 from June 2015 onwards.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2009-01-22 06:30
A crystal-clear and quantitative view of the road towards a low-carbon economy
The book Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air by David J.C. MacKay is a unique case among all of the current publications on this topic. If every author and decision maker involved with climate change and energy issues would take this book as a starting point before making any claims or proposals, the world would be saved a huge amount of discussion-energy, energy-to-disentangle-confusion, and energy-spent-on-fruitless-efforts.
'What exactly do you mean by "a huge amount"?' David MacKay would ask me at this point. Indeed, one of the remarkable facts about his book is that it is free of meaningless claims. In his introduction, he cites that most publications on sustainable energy do not give numbers or examples that are easily compared or put into perspective. What they do give are data used simply to impress.
MacKay’s book, on the other hand, constructs several numeric examples on how to create a low carbon economy in the UK. He reduces all figures to the unit of kWh per person per day, making the problem suddenly very transparent.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Fri, 2008-11-14 08:12
This introductory webinar explains how a small-scale wind energy system works, what is the most suitable solution in your case and, if it makes sense, how to start planning and building your installation.
After a briefing presentation, a case study was presented using the RETScreen analysis software.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Mon, 2008-06-23 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
In January 2006, Austria's federal and state governments announced a programme to reduce the climate impacts of housing. Under the deal, residential buildings must clearly exceed regulatory standards to qualify for state funding. The agreement includes an initial insulation standard of 65kWh per square metre, falling to 25-45 kWh/m2 by 2010. It also introduces new incentives for use of renewable heating systems.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Wed, 2008-05-21 17:14
Yes, you can.
A hydro-powered heat pump is probably the most viable renewable power-source since it is fairly constant. Solar or wind inputs would be difficult, especially on a small scale. The outputs are variable and dependent on the weather so there can be problems matching the input power requirements. The very large number of photo-electric cells required to power a heat pump would probably make this option impractical.
Powering a heat pump from grid electricity derived from a renewable source (e.g. wind-farm or hydro) is a good option for the environment.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-04-16 12:42
There are a number of commercial and technical mechanisms by which the variable elements of distributed energy resources (DER) can participate in the generation to demand matching process.
The timescales for participation are:
- System operator realtime ancillary services (response, reaction and reserve).
- System operator dispatch timescale power instructions (up to 1.5 hours ahead).
- Distribution operator realtime and lead timescale local security management.
- Market timescale energy trading - half hour block process down to 1.5 hours ahead.
There are four basic mechanisms by which DER can participate.
- Trading. The participant offers to increase or decrease export and import in power or energy blocks over defined time periods at a defined price. The supplier or operator accepts the offer which forms a controlling contract.
- Tariff. The primary tariff for Premises Import and Export is structured on a time varying basis and price profiles are signaled at different lead times.
- Control. Agreements are set up so that Premises Import and Export can be changed in response to a control instruction. This is the classic ancillary services ‘near real time’ mechanism for demand management, applied by the system or distribution operator.
- Automatic. Control actions executed automatically by sensing at the premises. Tripping of premises generation or UPS isolation of same following mains failure and ancillary services response to frequency deviations are examples.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-04-09 12:34
We now need to explore the requirements for the content of different types of messages used between the customer premises and the industry.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-03-26 20:01
As we have already stated, data traffic for distributed resource management will require the use of high speed aggregation and dissemination mechanisms between the customer and the commercial and operator sections of the industry.
Within premises we are seeing increased levels of data traffic and external interfaces - computing and entertainment in the domestic sector and business traffic in the commercial sector. The commercial sector also has buildings energy and facilities management systems while the industrial sector has large process management applications.
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By Fernando Nuno / Published on Wed, 2008-03-19 15:38
This manual explains how a small wind energy system works, what is the most suitable solution in your case and, if it makes sense, how to start planning and building your installation.
The current promotion by governments of distributed and renewable generation creates opportunities for individuals and small scale developers. This manual is part of a series dedicated to small scale renewables.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-03-19 12:00
The Power profiles for different DER sectors, with and without generation, need to be considered carefully.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Thu, 2008-03-13 13:24
Now, we need to look at the data flow in the opposite direction.
This will mainly comprise instructions and signals to change the intended Import-Export profile of DER premises in response to the data offered to do same.
The important thing to remember is that because the system is always in balance, everything effects everything else!
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-03-12 10:44
To look at a communication strategy from the bottom up, we need to start at premises level.
There is a considerable move to increase the level of communications within domestic premises for various uses.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Mon, 2008-01-28 13:13
Proper data communication between the active customer and the industry is vital for efficient operation of the system, to reduce and smooth out the operation of the remaining fossil-fired plant while maintaining adequate security of transmission and distribution systems.
The industry requires data for the following processes.
Market and System Operator - data to ensure accurate matching of Generation with Demand with adequate reserve capability.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Thu, 2008-01-24 17:48
The current relationship between the customer and the electricity supply buisness looks as follows. This diagram is based on the unbundled electricity supply structure in Great Britain (GB). With the exception of balance trading and settlement, all the business elements will be present in any electricity supply structure. This is the case even in counttries with full or partial vertical integration.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Thu, 2008-01-24 16:15
The main issue with DER management will be monitoring, trading and control at all levels. Let us look at the overall objective again:
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Wed, 2008-01-16 20:43
DDistributed resources need careful handling for Distributed Network Security and to ensure that fossil fuel burn is reduced most efficiently. Clever management of 'Distributed Electricty Resources' (DER) is the key.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Tue, 2008-01-15 19:49
Although the overall distribution energy supplied at a grid supply point will decrease with distributed generation, the supply point and the individual feeders will experience variable power flow patterns depending on the amount, type and distribution and location of generation connected.
Renewable generation output will of course vary depending on weather (irradiance, wind speed,) while CHP and CCHP will run at a constant output depending on the heat requirement.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Mon, 2008-01-14 17:01
Conventional distribution system management is based on supplying demand to customers on a discrete network connected to a transmission grid supply point. Some conventional, observable system instruction following generation is also accomodated at the higher distribution voltages, able to regulate active and reactive power export (and reactive import) to meet system matching and transmission and distribution security requirements. Such generation is carefully controlled to avoid Power Quality issues at adjacent customer premises.
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By Stephen Browning / Published on Mon, 2007-12-17 15:38
What we would expect to see under the current development framework is an increased penetration of smaller 'fuel or customer requirement' driven, unobservable, distributed generation of different types at different levels.
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