Demand load curves – an important tool for assessment of PV deployment success

Paper presented to the 3rd Southern African Solar Energy Conference, South Africa, 11-13 May, 2015.The interaction of electricity supply and demand is important in the process of system optimization. There is never a perfect match but reduced mismatch benefits the functioning of the system. Too small supply relative to the demand increases the risk of collapse in terms of black-outs, and too large supply relative to the demand increases system cost. For small, isolated systems these supply-demand interactions grow in importance due to limitations in redundancy. Since photovoltaics (PV) has its major comparative advantages in off-grid systems and is often deployed in small, decentralized applications the supplydemand interactions are of large importance for successful PV deployment. Thus, knowledge of the electricity demand and its variations with various users and as a function of time at different time scales is a key for PV deployment success. In this paper, a range of issues relating to PV-supplied demands and loads are discussed.dc201

The Impact of Local Climate Policy on District Heating Development in a Nordic city – a Dynamic Approach

On a national level, Sweden has announced plans to have no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2045. Furthermore, Gothenburg, a city in southwestern Sweden, has plans to phase out the use of fossil fuels in its heat and electricity production by 2030. Given that the development of a district heating (DH) system under dynamic and different climate policies and climate goals is a nontrivial problem, this study investigates two different policies of phasing out fossil fuels, either by introducing a fossil fuel ban, or by increasing the carbon tax to phase out the fossil fuel use in 2030 or 2045. The effects of the different phase out strategies on the future development of the existing DH system in Gothenburg has been investigated. The study is based on a system-wide approach covering both the supply and demand side developments. A TIMES system cost optimization model representing the DH system of Gothenburg was developed and applied for calculations. The results show that the total amount of heat supplied by the DH system is unaffected by the phase out policies. The amount of natural gas used to supply the DH system is however dependent on what kind of phase out policy is implemented. A yearly linearly increasing carbon tax policy introduced in 2021 phases out fossil fuel use earlier than the target year, while a ban phases out the fossil fuel only from the actual target year

The METIS model review

An integral part of the model quality control and quality assurance at the European Commission is a scientific peer-review of models, including those developed by external contractors. The present reports details the outcome of the review of the METIS, which was carried out by an external scientific Review Panel closely following ‘Guidelines for the review of models used in support of EU policies’. The review aimed at verifying and consolidating the scientific credibility of METIS and identifying most promising/relevant areas for a future model development. The report includes also a first reaction from the METIS team, detailing among others how Review Panel’s suggestions will be addressed.JRC.I.2-Foresight, Modelling, Behavioural Insights & Design for Polic

Model-Based Exploration of Co-Creation Efforts: The Case of Solar Photovoltaics (PV) in Skåne, Sweden

Co-creation in the societal sphere is becoming important in many parts of the world. However, empirical analysis of co-creation in local energy transitions has been understudied. This paper aims to contribute to the field of local energy transitions by integrating a model-based approach with the municipal co-creation efforts in a local energy transition setting. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, with both quantitative and qualitative methods underpinning the approach. A System Dynamics (SD) model is built to analyse the feedback loops created by the co-creation efforts of the municipalities in Skåne, Sweden to increase the uptake of household solar photovoltaics. Simultaneously, the model is conceptualized and built in coordination with the municipality actors, and qualitative validation provided by them. An iterative process is implemented, consisting of three steps: interaction with the municipality actors (MAs), developing the causal relationships between the model variables and model development. The suggestions and discussions with the MAs were very useful in understanding the social factors and processes which help in the diffusion of a technologically innovative product, such as solar PV. The MAs said that they found the explanation of the modelling variables useful in undertaking the co-creation efforts

Economic performance evaluation of natural gas vehicles and their fuel infrastructures

The transition from high carbon-intensity to low carbon-intensity transport fuels entails the development of energy efficient and cost-effective decarbonisation pathways. In this paper, 14 potential natural and renewable gas supply pathways and natural gas vehicles (NGVs) have been selected and evaluated with regards to well-to-tank (WTT) fuel production costs and break-even vehicle added investment costs. NGVs are evaluated for both road- and maritime transport applications with three types of gas engines; dedicated, dual fuel, and high pressure direct injection (HPDI) engines. The results indicate that owing to the alternate gas distribution mechanisms and filling stations configuration there exist a substantial fuel production cost differences between the selected gas pathways. Despite its long-distance shipping and distribution, imported LNG showed significant production cost advantage over compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied renewable natural gas (LRNG) pathways. Evaluating the current economic performances, all NGVs are found to be competitive corresponding to gasoline cars, but not compared to diesel cars due to the lower price gap between CNG and diesel. In the heavy-duty vehicle and passenger vessel segments, however, owing to the high price gap between LNG and diesel/marine gas oil (MGO), all NGVs and LNG passenger vessels showed high competitiveness compared to their conventional counterparts

Implications of using clean technologies to power selected ASEAN countries

This paper focuses on energy system development of the three largest Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries: Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. The energy infrastructures in these counties are in the process of rapid development and, therefore, technology choices are critical. Applying the energy system model MARKAL and scenario analysis, this paper examines and quantifies the role of clean and advanced energy technologies for efficient local resource exploitation and improving energy security and environmental conditions. The main focus is on the power sector and the paper also addresses the potential ASEAN markets for European energy technologies. The paper concludes that there is a large potential market for clean and advanced energy technologies in the studied countries. If adopted, these technologies will bring several benefits like reduction in primary energy requirement, reduced investments requirement in the power sector and other parts of the energy infrastructure, reduced import of primary energy, reduced CO2 emissions and local pollution, reduced energy system costs and marginal cost of electricity supply. Finally, barriers for transfer and diffusion of advanced energy technologies are discussed.MARKAL modelling Energy technologies ASEAN countries

Cost-efficiency of urban heating strategies – Modelling scale effects of low-energy building heat supply

There is now a strong demand in Sweden for construction of new low energy buildings (LEB) areas. There are essentially three options for heat supply to these LEB areas: “individual”, “on-site” and “large heat network” supply. The chosen option is of strategic societal interest. Thus, this study aims at comparing the long-term system cost of the three heat supply options. A dynamic modelling approach is applied in a systematic analysis designed to investigate the threshold for the various options' cost-efficiency. The study addresses scale impacts of hypothetical LEB areas and district heating systems. The results show that, generally, the large heat network option has the lowest system cost whereas in most cases the individual option has the highest system cost. Keywords: Low temperature district heating, Fourth generation district heating, TIMES, Energy system modelling, Passive house