Hydropower: Technology Market Report

This Hydropower Technology Market Report 2018 presents an assessment of the state of the art, development trends, targets and needs, technological barriers, as well as techno-economic projections until 2050. Particular attention is paid to how EC funded projects contributed to technology advancements. It includes an overview of Member States' activities based on information from the relevant SET Plan Temporary Working Groups as well as the objectives and main outcomes of the most relevant international programmes.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Hydropower: Technology Development Report

This Hydropower Technology Development Report 2018 presents an assessment of the state of the art, development trends, targets and needs, technological barriers, as well as techno-economic projections until 2050. Particular attention is paid to how EC funded projects contributed to technology advancements. It includes an overview of Member States' activities based on information from the relevant SET Plan Temporary Working Groups as well as the objectives and main outcomes of the most relevant international programmes.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Assessment of flood hazard areas at a regional scale using an index-based approach and Analytical Hierarchy Process: Application in Rhodope–Evros region, Greece

AbstractThe present study introduces a multi-criteria index to assess flood hazard areas in a regional scale. Accordingly, a Flood Hazard Index (FHI) has been defined and a spatial analysis in a GIS environment has been applied for the estimation of its value.The developed methodology processes information of seven parameters namely flow accumulation, distance from the drainage network, elevation, land use, rainfall intensity and geology. The initials of these criteria gave the name to the developed method: “FIGUSED”. The relative importance of each parameter for the occurrence and severity of flood has been connected to weight values. These values are calculated following an “Analytical Hierarchy Process”, a method originally developed for the solution of Operational Research problems. According to their weight values, information of the different parameters is superimposed, resulting to flood hazard mapping. The accuracy of the method has been supported by a sensitivity analysis that examines a range for the weights' values and corresponding to alternative scenarios.The presented methodology has been applied to an area in north-eastern Greece, where recurring flood events have appeared. Initially FIGUSED method resulted to a Flood Hazard Index (FHI) and a corresponding flood map. A sensitivity analysis on the parameters' values revealed some interesting information on the relative importance of each criterion, presented and commented in the Discussion section. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis concluded to a revised index FHIS (methodology named FIGUSED-S) and flood mapping, supporting the robustness of FIGUSED methodology. A comparison of the outcome with records of historical flood events confirmed that the proposed methodology provides valid results

Integrated energy and transport planning: Targeting islands' sustainable development

The present Master Thesis focuses on islands' sustainable development and contains the output of a research activity addressing several sustainability issues in an integrated manner. It creates a nexus analysis framework, where energy and transport systems are analysed in parallel while interactions with the environment and water infrastructure are also examined. The Thesis builds on three main pillars i.e. the analyses of energy systems, new transport schemes for the islands and a qualitative-quantitative analysis of different strategies. An energy model was specifically developed for islands to assess challenges and opportunities of transforming electricity systems and the potential role of modern renewable energy sources (RES). The model was applied in selected test-cases and processed up-to-date information. A second part of the nexus analysis investigated the potential role of emerging and revolutionary transport concepts in the island setting. Potential synergies were also identified to enable a harmonic operation of transport and energy systems. As a third pillar, the research analysed the different strategies. It processed the priorities defined by a selected group of 44 specialists (scientists, decision makers, industry and project developers) with experience on islands' sustainable development. Selected experts filled a structured questionnaire, specifically designed for the needs of islands, and the collected responses were processed using a Q-technique. The results translated the qualitative experts' input to quantitative output, a valuable information to be used in decision making. This Thesis supports thus a sustainable development paradigm change by providing evidence about the importance of redefining islands' energy and transport systems in an integrated manner. It highlights the available synergies, provides modelled projections for the future and evidence to understand available strategies according to specialists. It is an attempt to provide science-based input to influence sustainable development strategies for the island societies, with measurable impacts for the economies and environments

Sustainable Energy Portfolios for Small Island States

The study presents a cost effective electricity generation portfolio for six island states for a 20-year period (2015-2035). The underlying concept investigates whether adding sizeable power capacities of renewable energy sources (RES) options could decrease the overall costs and contribute to a more sustainable, indigenous electricity generation at the same time. Often, island states rely on fossil fuels which apart from dependence on foreign resources also includes an additional, significant transport cost. This is an extra motive to study the extent in which island states represent primary locations for RES technologies. For the aims of the present study an optimization model has been developed and following numerous runs the obtained results show that installing PV and battery capacities can delay-reduce the huge investments in fossil options in early periods. Thus, investment on RES can have a positive, long-term effect on the overall energy mix. This prompt development can happen without adding new subsidies but there is a need to address the existing socio-economic barriers with intelligent design of financing and economic instruments and capacity building as discussed in the conclusions.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

Water-Energy-Food nexus interactions assessment: Renewable energy sources to support water access and quality in West Africa

The present Technical Report examines the potential synergies between energy, water and agricultural production in Africa. It aims to highlight strategies that address important challenges in an integrated manner. In this regard, the deployment of clean energy sources through the utilization of indigenous African renewable sources aims to provide the required energy to extract, process and convey water resources that will eventually support agricultural activities and food production.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Mapping the least-cost option for rural electrification in Burkina Faso: Scaling-up renewable energies

This report describes the current status and limitations of the power sector in Burkina Faso and develops a new methodology that through spatial analysis processes aims to provide a possible pathway for universal electricity access through a sustainable energy mix. Two percent of the rural population in Burkina Faso has access to electricity and supply is lacking at many social structures such as schools and hospitals. Energy access achievements in Burkina Faso are still very modest. The rural electrification strategy for Burkina Faso is scattered in several electricity sector development policies: there is a need of defining a concrete action plan. Planning and coordination between grid extension and off-grid electrification programmes is essential to reach a long-term sustainable energy model and to avoid high unnecessary infrastructure investments. This report describes the development and the results obtained with a dynamic planning tool to support national government and development partners in defining an alternative electrification plan. Currently, the common national policy for electrification is dominated almost exclusively by grid extension with the government subsidising fossil fuel electricity production. However, the results of our analysis suggest that an electrification plan mainly based on further grid extension becomes inefficient and unsustainable in order to reach the national energy access targets. Our results also suggest that Burkina Faso’s rural electrification strategy should be driven by distributed minigrids powered by local renewable resources. We find that this approach would connect more people to power more quickly, and would reduce imported fossil fuel dependence/consumption that would otherwise be necessary for grid extension options.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Mapping of affordability levels for photovoltaic-based electricity generation in the solar belt of sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia

Lack of access to modern forms of energy hampers efforts to reduce poverty. The provision of electricity to off-grid communities is therefore a long-standing developmental goal. Yet, many off-grid electrification projects neglect mid- and long-term operation and maintenance costs. When this is the case, electricity services are unlikely to be affordable to the communities that are the project’s primary target. Here we show that, compared with diesel-powered electricity generation systems, solar photovoltaic systems are more affordable to no less than 36% of the unelectrified populations in East Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by developing geo-referenced estimates of affordability at a high level of resolution (1 km2). The analysis illustrates the differences in affordability that may be found at the subnational level, which underscores that electrification investments should be informed by subnational data

Assessing the energy potential of modernizing the European hydropower fleet

About 50% of all hydropower plants (HPPs) worldwide were originally commissioned more than 40 years ago, so that the advanced age of the fleet is a major concern across all continents, and especially in Europe. The retrofitting of HPPs can generate several benefits for production, flexibility, safety, management and environment. In this work, the benefits related to energy and flexibility were considered and quantified by conducting a large-scale assessment for the European Union and Europe, taking into account several retrofitting strategies: dam heightening, head loss reduction in waterways, increase of installed power in run-of-the-river and storage power plants, increase of annual inflow, increase of maximum efficiency and weighted efficiency of electro-mechanical equipment, start and stop improvement, digitalization and inflow forecast, floating photovoltaic and reservoir interconnection. For most of these strategies, an indicator of the additional capacity and/or annual production that could be obtained compared to the current conditions was calculated. Excluding site-specific strategies (e.g. installation of new parallel waterways, increase of withdrawals from existing intakes) the resulting compound value of the indicator is 10.2% for European Union and 12.2% for the whole Europe, plus 4-28.6 TWh achievable by interconnecting reservoirs. This suggests that the retrofitting of HPPs can generate significant benefits in terms of energy and flexibility, minimizing environmental impacts, and should be considered as an important element of both energy transition and water management policies