7 research outputs found
EurEnDel - European Energy Delphi
EurEnDel is the first Europe-wide Delphi study
on Energy, entrusted by the European Commission
DG Research. EurEnDel assesses long-term developments
in energy technologies, their potentials and
expected impacts. The perspective taken combines a
technology push with a social pull approach, embracing
a time horizon of 30 years. The liberalisation of the
energy sector, the increasing amount of trans-national
research as well as rapid technology developments
challenge today's innovation systems and demand a
greater integration and cohesion into EU-wide innovation
strategies. EurEnDel employs a Union-wide Delphi
survey to cover the need for reliable information on
long-term trends and developments, which will then be
presented in form of scenarios as guiding lines for
future research priorities. Thus this paper provides the
rationale and design of the foresight study as well as
some preliminary results
Energy policy and the role of bioenergy in Poland
Poland, as many other countries, has ambitions to increase the use of renewable energy sources. In this paper, we review the current status of bioenergy in Poland and make a critical assessment of the prospects for increasing the share of bioenergy in energy supply, including policy implications. Bioenergy use was about 4% (165PJ) of primary energy use (3900PJ) and 95% of renewable energy use (174PJ) in 2003, mainly as firewood in the domestic sector. Targets have been set to increase the contribution of renewable energy to 7.5% in 2010, in accordance with the EU accession treaty, and to 14% in 2020. Bioenergy is expected to be the main contributor to reaching those targets. From a resource perspective, the use of bioenergy could at least double in the near term if straw, forestry residues, wood-waste, energy crops, biogas, and used wood were used for energy purposes. The long-term potential, assuming short rotation forestry on potentially available agricultural land is about one-third, or 1400 PJ, of current total primary energy use. However, in the near term, Poland is lacking fundamental driving forces for increasing the use of bioenergy (e.g., for meeting demand increases, improving supply security, or further reducing sulphur or greenhouse gas emissions). There is yet no coherent policy or strategy for supporting bioenergy. Co-firing with coal in large plants is an interesting option for creating demand and facilitating the development of a market for bioenergy. The renewable electricity quota obligation is likely to promote such co-firing but promising applications of bioenergy are also found in small- and medium-scale applications for heat production. Carbon taxes and, or, other financial support schemes targeted also at the heating sector are necessary in the near term in order to reach the 7.5% target. In addition, there is a need to support the development of supply infrastructure, change certain practices in forestry, coordinate RD&D efforts, and support general capacity building. The greatest challenge for the longer term lies in reforming and restructuring the agricultural sector. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved