The Effect of State Policy on Renewable Energy Capacity

From the Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA), Spring 2018. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor: Maria Canon and Bruce Peterso

South Africa's renewable energy policy roadmaps

South Africa’s renewable energy policy to date has largely been driven by a 10,000 GWh target by 2013 and renewable energy project subsidies offered through the REFSO. In 2009 a REFIT was published, which has resulted in a great interest by IPPs to develop renewable energy projects in South Africa. Nonetheless, under existing renewable energy policy few renewable energy projects for electricity generation have been deployed. SWHs have seen some market growth in 2008 and 2009 largely facilitated by a SWH subsidy and increased energy awareness due to nation-wide electricity blackouts in 2008

Assessing the effectiveness of national solar and wind energy policies in South Africa

The report assesses the progress made on renewable energy deployment for the solar and wind technologies over the last 12 years in South Africa. First the report assesses the potential contribution solar water heaters (SWHs), concentrating solar power (CSP), large-scale photovoltaic (PV) farms and wind technology can bring to South Africa’s energy demand by 2030. It highlights what the mid-term potential for each is by 2030 and compares this with the deployment of each over the past 12 years. From this a renewable energy policy effectiveness value is calculated based on the method developed in the Deploying Renewables Report (IEA, 2008a) and this is critically assessed. Finally, the report assesses the factors involved in renewable energy deployment, or the lack thereof, in South Africa and discusses recent developments in the field. The compilation of this paper was based on desktop reviews; data interpretation from multiple sources; expert opinion of the authors and peer reviewers; and interviews with experts in the field. A number of interviews were conducted at the ISES International Solar Energy Society Conference in October 2009 and the Energy 2010 Indaba in February 2010. The data used in this report to formulate the projections is from a number of sources and has been independently reviewed

Large-scale rollout of concentrating solar power in South Africa

As part of Climate Strategies ‘International Support for Domestic Climate Policies’ project this paper assesses the large-scale rollout of CSP in South Africa. Described as a Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA), the scale of CSP deployment is determined, and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved and incremental investment costs are estimated in line with the modelling outcomes of the Long-Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS) for South Africa (Chapter 2). Based on a stakeholder workshop held in May 2009 the drivers in support of the rollout of CSP are described, in particular the recently established Renewable Energy Feed-In Tariff (REFIT), and three major barriers relating to technology, regulation and infrastructure are highlighted (Chapter 3). The paper further assesses options of international support in light of the climate change negotiations to overcome the barriers identified (Chapter 4), and lastly, it assesses indicators that may be successful in monitoring the large-scale rollout of CSP (Chapter 5). In this study we define the ‘large-scale’ rollout of CSP in line with the more optimistic ‘renewables extended with learning’ projection modelled in the LTMS of South Africa, as depicted in the figure below. The rollout is characterised by three phases: during the initial ‘Start’ phase, from 2010 to 2015, 2 GW of CSP capacity is constructed; the end of the ‘Scale–up’ phase (2030) results in a 24 GW CSP capacity; and by the completion of the ‘Rollout’ phase (2050) 100GW of CSP capacity should be established. This could result in 3,850 Mt CO2-eq saved over the period 2010-2050 and would require an incremental cost of R 4.7-13 billion per year if CSP technologies experience learning rates of 15 to 20% per year, and less (R 3.6-4.6 billion per year) if the country manages to create a local supply of CSP components. Post-2030, during the ‘Rollout’ phase cost savings are expected to be achieved in South African electricity generation system. Before then the cost to the electricity system is estimate at R2.5 billion for 2010-2015, R 8 billion for 2016-2020 and R23 billion for 2021-2030 above the baseline projection. The rollout could result in approximately 3,800 Mt CO2-eq saved over the period 2010-2050 and the build programme is estimated to require incremental investment costs of R 4-13 billion per year if CSP technologies experience learning rates of 15 to 20% per year, and less – R 2-4.3 billion per year – if the country manages to create a local supply of CSP components

Anisotropic mesh refinement in polyhedral domains: error estimates with data in L^2(\Omega)

The paper is concerned with the finite element solution of the Poisson equation with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition in a three-dimensional domain. Anisotropic, graded meshes from a former paper are reused for dealing with the singular behaviour of the solution in the vicinity of the non-smooth parts of the boundary. The discretization error is analyzed for the piecewise linear approximation in the H^1(\Omega)- and L^2(\Omega)-norms by using a new quasi-interpolation operator. This new interpolant is introduced in order to prove the estimates for L^2(\Omega)-data in the differential equation which is not possible for the standard nodal interpolant. These new estimates allow for the extension of certain error estimates for optimal control problems with elliptic partial differential equation and for a simpler proof of the discrete compactness property for edge elements of any order on this kind of finite element meshes.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure