Renewable energy policy and wind energy development in Germany

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Wind Energy and Its Impact on Future Environmental Policy Planning: Powering Renewable Energy in Canada and Abroad

With the rising demand for energy from finite conventional sources such as coal and natural gas, the emphasis on modern environmental policy planning for renewable energy is rapidly gaining attention. In particular, wind energy projects that include wind turbine technology is helping drive this trend towards cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable forms of energy that provide electricity to consumers. This paper provides an introductory review of wind energy, outlining its history, technology, and current legislative frameworks adopted by various nations in harnessing renewable energy. This analysis includes a thorough discussion of Canada’s approach, but continues with renewable wind programs in the United States, nations within the European Union, Australia, China, India, and Japan. The paper also updates many of the recent developments in these nations, revealing the commonalities in approaching wind energy applications. Key issues related to wind energy include legislative frameworks adopted for renewable energy, financial incentives offered by governments to companies investing and maintaining renewable sources of energy like wind, interconnection of grid systems, the development of onshore and offshore wind farms, and market-based approaches that are contributing to reducing electricity prices in the energy sector. However, the author is careful to recognize how various challenges are experienced by legislators, industry officials, and consumers towards establishing a meaningful environmental policy of renewable wind energy

Innovation Paths in Wind Power: Insights from Denmark and Germany

Denmark and Germany both make substantial investments in low carbon innovation, not least in the wind power sector. These investments in wind energy are driven by the twin objectives of reducing carbon emissions and building up international competitive advantage. Support for wind power dates back to the 1970s, but it has gained particular traction in recent years thus opening up new innovation paths. This paper explores the key features, similarities and differences in innovation paths in Denmark and Germany and sheds light on their main determinants. The paper shows that there are many commonalities between Denmark and Germany when it comes to innovation pathways, both in technological and organisational innovation. In turbine technology, the similarities are the constant increase in turbine size and quality. The key difference to be found is the relative importance of different turbine designs. The ‘Danish Design’ remains the global standard. The direct drive design, while uncommon in Denmark, dominates the German installation base. Direct drive technology has thus emerged as a distinctly German design and sub-trajectory within the overall technological innovation path. When it comes to organising wind turbine deployment, both countries have moved along broadly similar paths. There are now fewer turbines deployed than at any time in the past 10 to 20 years, but on average these are concentrated in larger projects and the production capacity and total electricity output has increased significantly in both countries. The key difference is in the role of the offshore segment in deployment: Denmark has been a pioneer in the offshore segment, which has hitherto played a much smaller role in Germany. While this paper shows that there are many common features between the two countries, it also identifies a diversity of pathways, or rather, a co-existence of different subtrajectories in both core technology and in the organisation of deployment. It is as yet unclear whether the future will bring more convergence or divergence. To address this, the paper explores specific determinants of innovation paths: government policies, demand conditions, geography, value chains, and the strategies undertaken by firms. It demonstrates that the innovation paths common to both countries have roots in a confluence of determining factors which are mainly due to social and political priorities, preferences and decisions at national level. However, the sub-trajectories, which create variation between Denmark and Germany, differ in this regard. They tend to have roots in ‘given’ geographical conditions and in company-level technology choices. In other words, many of the similarities in innovation paths between Denmark and Germany have common national causes, while company-specific strategies also influence the innovation paths in significant ways. This raises important questions about the national specificity of innovation paths in wind power development. Finally, the paper briefly addresses the increasing global interconnectedness of wind technology markets and the role of emerging new players, such as China and India

Renewable Ocean Energy Site Selection Using a GIS: Gulf Coast Potential

Development of offshore renewable wind energy for coastal states, counties and federally owned regions must account for numerous constraints and factors. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, decisions on developing sites for renewable wind energy have traditionally stemmed from environmental, socioeconomic, and political bases. Environmentally, new renewable off-shore projects cannot infringe on wetlands, marine sanctuaries, and fragile ecosystems (EFH). Placement of an offshore wind turbine should not significantly impact the surrounding environment. Taking into account maritime concerns, shipping lanes must not be impeded, and active military fly zones must be avoided. Offshore projects must be financially self-sustaining for states and counties. Profit-sharing is important when within state waters (up to 3 nm), and federal oversight is necessary when working outside of state waters and within federal waters (the 3 to 200 nm range). Each offshore variable that requires pre-deployment evaluation is location specific and geographically significant, as well as interconnected with its surrounding environment. Decisions involving development of offshore renewable wind energy sites require analyzing the amount of available energy at specific locations; studying existing activities, barriers, and exclusion zones; and providing results to the public. In this research, a number of these factors impacting offshore renewable wind development were combined in a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based site suitability model to identify and map how key pieces interrelate. The results indicated that there are limited, yet highly suitable locations for new offshore wind projects along the northern Gulf of Mexico coastline and continental shelf (near the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama), and that geo-spatial tools and techniques can be used to make more efficient decisions using existing data, while mitigating risks in the rapidly expanding industry of offshore renewable wind. Using certain suggested turbine spacing and full capacity, the Central Planning Area of the Gulf of Mexico could host over 5,000 wind turbines of variable sizes. Looking at three turbines operating at 30% efficiency, and using a calculated average wind speed of 8.6 m/s at 90 m above the surface, there is an estimated 10.3-19 Gigawatt hours of energy available in this area every year

Portugal

In Portugal, 2012 was an atypical year in Portugal with regards to energy. Due to the efficiency measures implemented in recent years, but also due to the economic recession, electricity consumption in Portugal dropped 3.6% to 49.1 TWh. This represents a reduction of 6% of electricity demand in the last two years (1). It was also an extremely dry year, the fifth driest hydro year of the past 80 years (63% below the normal climate). Therefore, due to the reduced hydro production, the renewable contribution for the energy mix decreased 17% compared to 2011

Environmental data for the planning of off-shore wind parks from the EnerGEO Platform of Integrated Assessment (PIA)

International audienceThe EU-sponsored EnerGEO project aims at providing decision makers with a modelling platform to assess the environmental impacts of different sources of renewable energy. One of the pillars of the project is the Wind Energy Pilot, addressing the effects of offshore wind parks on air pollution and energy use. The methods used in the pilot and the underlying environmental databases are integrated into a WebGIS client tool and made available to the public. This paper is dedicated to describing the environmental databases and supporting data incorporated in the client tool. A 27-km resolution, 11-year wind database is created using the WRF model. The wind database is used to assess the wind climate in the north-west Atlantic region and to derive the potential power output from offshore wind parks. Auxiliary data concerning water depth, distance to shore and distance to the nearest suitable port are created to aid the planning and maintenance phases. Seasonal workability conditions are assessed using a 20-year wave database. The distance at which future wind parks should be placed to exhibit different wind climates is investigated

Mathematical Optimization and Algorithms for Offshore Wind Farm Design: An Overview

Wind energy is a fast evolving field that has attracted a lot of attention and investments in the last dec- ades. Being an increasingly competitive market, it is very important to minimize establishment costs and increase production profits already at the design phase of new wind parks. This paper is based on many years of collaboration with Vattenfall, a leading wind energy developer and wind power operator, and aims at giving an overview of the experience of using Mathematical Optimization in the field. The paper illustrates some of the practical needs defined by energy companies, showing how optimization can help the designers to increase production and reduce costs in the design of offshore parks. In particular, the study gives an overview of the individual phases of designing an offshore windfarm,andsomeoftheoptimizationproblemsinvolved. Finally it goes in depth with three of the most important optimization tasks: turbine location, electrical cable routing and foundation optimization. The paper is concluded with a discussion of future challenges