Storage power purchase agreements to enable the deployment of energy storage in Europe

We propose a contractual setup, the proxy storage power purchase agreement (PPA), to foster the deployment of energy storage technologies. We define a threshold price below which the PPA becomes financially attractive for PPA buyers. We compute the threshold price for several storage technologies and configurations, in seven European countries. Such threshold prices overlap with the best-case forecast of the battery levelized cost of storage in 2030, indicating that proxy storage PPAs can play a role in enabling battery storage installations within the next ten years in Europe (generating about €180 million per year). Moreover, we identify UK and Germany as the most attractive countries for storage PPAs in Europe due to the high projected threshold prices and planned storage capacities. We show that revenues are maximized when coupling storage with wind energy generation rather than solar. This points to the design of policies that efficiently subsidize storage installations.ISSN:2589-004

Innovative strategies for observations in the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer (ISOBAR)—The Hailuoto 2017 Campaign

The aim of the research project “Innovative Strategies for Observations in the Arctic Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ISOBAR)” is to substantially increase the understanding of the stable atmospheric boundary layer (SBL) through a combination of well-established and innovative observation methods as well as by models of different complexity. During three weeks in February 2017, a first field campaign was carried out over the sea ice of the Bothnian Bay in the vicinity of the Finnish island of Hailuoto. Observations were based on ground-based eddy-covariance (EC), automatic weather stations (AWS) and remote-sensing instrumentation as well as more than 150 flight missions by several different Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) during mostly stable and very stable boundary layer conditions. The structure of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and above could be resolved at a very high vertical resolution, especially close to the ground, by combining surface-based measurements with UAV observations, i.e., multicopter and fixed-wing profiles up to 200 m agl and 1800 m agl, respectively. Repeated multicopter profiles provided detailed information on the evolution of the SBL, in addition to the continuous SODAR and LIDAR wind measurements. The paper describes the campaign and the potential of the collected data set for future SBL research and focuses on both the UAV operations and the benefits of complementing established measurement methods by UAV measurements to enable SBL observations at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution