Investigating Preconditions for Sustainable Renewable Energy Product–Service Systems in Retail Electricity Markets

Energy transitions are complex and involve interrelated changes in the socio-technical dimensions of society. One major barrier to renewable energy transitions is lock-in from the incumbent socio-technical regime. This study evaluates Energy Product–Service Systems (EPSS) as a renewable energy market mechanism. EPSS offer electricity service performance instead of energy products and appliances for household consumers. Through consumers buying the service, the provider company is enabled to choose, manage and control electrical appliances for best-matched service delivery. Given the heterogenous market players and future uncertainties, this study aims to identify the necessary conditions to achieve a sustainable renewable energy market. Simulation-Based Design for EPSS framework is implemented to assess various hypothetical market conditions’ impact on market efficiency in the short term and long term. The results reveal the specific market characteristics that have a higher chance of causing unexpected results. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates the advantage of implementing Simulation-Based Design for EPSS to design retail electricity markets for renewable energy under competing market mechanisms with heterogenous economic agents

Costs and carbon emissions of shared autonomous electric vehicles in a Virtual Power Plant and Microgrid with renewable energy

5th International Conference on Power and Energy Systems Engineering (CPESE 2018), 19-21 September 2018, Nagoya, Japan.Shared autonomous electric vehicles (SAEVs) are expected to become commercially available within the next decade. This technology could transform transport paradigms and alter the availability of controllable storage from electrified transportation. This work describes a novel simulation methodology for investigating the potential for SAEVs to act as storage in the framework of a Virtual Power Plant or a microgrid with intermittent renewable energy. The model simulates aggregate storage availability from vehicles based on transport patterns and optimizes charging. We study the case of a grid-connected VPP with rooftop solar and the case of a isolated microgrid with solar, wind, and dispatchable generation. The results show that SAEVs offer significantly lower costs compared to private vehicles. SAEVs can also substantially increase renewable energy utilization in a microgrid

Study on Behavioral Decision Making by Power Generation Companies Regarding Energy Transitions under Uncertainty

With respect to decision making by companies, normative approaches such as the net present value (NPV) method are widely applied, even though it is known that investors may make non-normative decisions. This study aimed to obtain new information on the decision-making behavior of renewable energy (RE) companies under uncertainty in the energy market, which is not provided by the conventional normative approach. In this study, we designed a novel framework that expressed both normative and non-normative perspectives of decision making, and developed a behavioral decision-making model of a power generation company investing in large-scale RE (RE company). We also examined the decisions of the RE company under uncertainty in the energy market using the developed model, considering the Kansai region in Japan as an example study area. As a result, compared to the conventional NPV method, we obtained the following information: (i) heavy investments in either photovoltaics (PV) or wind resulted in decreased variable renewable energy (VRE) capacity, even though financial support was sufficient; (ii) balanced investments in both PV and wind yielded a larger VRE capacity in cases where financial support was sufficient; and (iii) co-worker’s suggestions that lowered the decision-makers’ reference point (RFP) encouraged VRE investments despite insufficient financial support

Global Zero Emission Scenario: Role of Innovative Technologies

AbstractThis study investigated a zero emission scenario with following two originalities compared to various existing studies. One is that we based on A1T society of SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenario) of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) compared to existing studies on those of B1 or B2. The second one is that various innovative and radical technologies were considered and incorporated, such as biomass energy with CCS (BECCS), and advanced nuclear technologies including hydrogen or synfuel production. We applied a global modeling, whose energies, materials, and biomass and foods supply costs were minimized by linear programing with time horizon up to 2150. We found following features of energy supply structure in A1T scenario. Since the electric demand in A1T scenario in 2100 is two times larger than the others, 1) renewable energy which solely produce electricity, nuclear, and fossil energy with CCS (FECCS) especially coal are main sources of electricity, 2) renewable which can supply heat, namely BECCS and geothermal, satisfies the sector, and 3) hydrogen from coal is introduced in transport sector. It can be concluded that the zero emission energy systems with global economic growth will be possible, by development and deployment of ambitious advanced energy technologies

Will Capacity Mechanisms Conflict with Carbon Pricing?

Climate change and related national mitigation targets make the decarbonization of the power sector an urgent need. The power sector faces the challenge of considering the design and interaction between emission reduction policies, which can sometimes counteract each other. This study proposes a framework that can be used to quantitatively study the qualitative link between carbon pricing and capacity pricing. The framework is validated through a case study in Hokkaido, Japan, and used to further investigate the interaction between the two policies through a System Dynamics simulation model and scenario design. The results indicate that a carbon price would promote the introduction of wind power, as well as the reduction in fossil fuels, while the capacity price will mitigate the boom-and-bust investment cycle and stabilize electricity prices. However, when the two policy-based prices act on the power system simultaneously, the advantages will be offset by each other. The existence of the capacity price partially offsets the emission reduction effect of the carbon price, and the carbon price with a lower floor will also indirectly squeeze the generation space of flexible power plants. In order to address these inefficiencies, this study proposed a capacity price focused on subsidizing flexible power plants and also coupled with a higher floor carbon price, which results in a consistent incentive. It also promotes the decommissioning of carbon-intensive base-load power plants and reduces CO₂ emissions significantly