Survey of Photovoltaic Industry and Policy in Germany and China

As building-integrated photovoltaic (PV) solutions can meet around one-third of electricity demand in Germany and China, both countries are interested in exploring this potential. PV technologies have demonstrated significant price reductions, but large-scale global application of PV requires further technology improvements and cost reductions along the value chain. We analyze policies in Germany and China, including deployment support, investment support for manufacturing plants and R&D support measures, and we survey the industrial actors they can encourage to pursue innovation. While deployment support has been successful, investment support for manufacturing in these nations has not been sufficiently tied to innovation incentives, and R&D support has been comparatively weak. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities for global policy coordination.Photovoltaics, Technology Policy, Innovation, Investment Support

Renewable Electric Energy Integration: Quantifying the Value of Design of Markets for International Transmission Capacity

Integrating large quantities of supply-driven renewable electricity generation remains a political and operational challenge. One of the main obstacles in Europe to installing at least 200 GWs of power from variable renewable sources is how to deal with the insufficient network capacity and the congestion that will result from new flow patterns. We model the current methodology for controlling congestion at international borders and compare its results, under varying penetrations of wind power, with a model that simulates an integrated European network that utilises nodal/localised marginal pricing. The nodal pricing simulations illustrate that congestion - and price - patterns vary considerably between wind scenarios and within countries, and that a nodal price regime could make fuller use of existing EU network capacity, introducing substantial operational cost savings and reducing marginal power prices in the majority of European countries.Power market design, renewable power integration, congestion management, transmission economics

Industrial robotics in factory automation: from the early stage to the Internet of Things

Robotics is a surprisingly old discipline, and robots have shaped industry and the various industrial revolutions for many decades. This paper covers topics relevant to the IES Technical Committee on Factory Automation, focusing in particular on the evolution of industrial robotics. After providing a historical perspective on the topic, the paper addresses current and future trends, revealing the close link between the progress in industrial robotics and the parallel evolution of industrial communication systems, which represent an enabling technology for modern industrial robotics.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Photovoltaik Ausbau : Gestaltung effektiver Fördermechanismen

Solarenergie ist die größte Energieressource auf der Erde und zeichnet sich durch Nachhaltigkeit, Sauberkeit und globale Verfügbarkeit aus. Photovoltaik (PV) Technologien wandeln Sonnenlicht direkt in elektrische Energie um. Die Photovoltaik bietet der Menschheit zahlreiche ökonomische und ökologische Vorteile und besitzt die höchste Lernrate in der Energiewelt. Politikinstrumente zur Förderung des Ausbaus und der technologischen Entwicklung haben das schnelle Marktwachstum der PV in den letzten Jahren ermöglicht. Allerdings ist PV Strom in vielen Ländern noch nicht wettbewerbsfähig mit Strom aus konventionellen Kraftwerken und benötigt daher stabile finanzielle Rahmenbedingungen. Die weitere Förderung der Photovoltaik wird ökonomisch durch die Substitution fossiler Brennstofftechnologien mit externen Kosten und die Unterstützung technologischer Entwicklung begründet. Diese Dissertation hat das Ziel einen Beitrag zu Entwicklung und Design effektiver und effizienter Politikinstrumente zur Vergütung solarer Stromerzeugung zu leisten. Die Dissertation besteht aus drei eigenständigen Arbeiten, die unabhängig voneinander gelesen werden können. Artikel I ‘Survey of Photovoltaic Industry and Policy in Germany and China’ analysiert zwei Länder mit signifikanten PV politischen Errungenschaften. Während Deutschland für viele Jahre der größte Markt für PV Installationen war, entwickelte sich China zum größten Produzenten von Solarzellen und –modulen. Basierend auf einer Berechnung des technischen Potenzials verschiedener PV Technologien und der erforderlichen Kostenreduktionen zur Erreichung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit untersucht der Artikel für beide Länder Industriestruktur und Politikinstrumente zur Förderung von Ausbau, Investitionen in Produktionsanlagen, sowie Forschung und Entwicklung. Artikel II ‘Responsive Feed-in Tariff Adjustment to Dynamic Technology Development’ entwickelt ein analytisches Modell zur Simulation von PV Installationen und Einspeisevergütungen. Da der globale PV Ausbau hauptsächlich durch Einspeisevergütungen ermöglicht wurde, erlaubt dieses Modell die Analyse der Effektivität unterschiedlicher Vergütungssysteme. Das Modell bildet die beobachteten Marktentwicklungen in Deutschland präzise ab, und dient der Untersuchung verschiedener Anpassungsmechanismen für Einspeisevergütungen im Rahmen zahlreicher Systempreis Szenarien. Artikel III ‘Comparison of Feed-in Tariffs and Tenders to Remunerate Solar Power Generation’ untersucht Einspeisevergütungen und Ausschreibungen zur Förderung unterschiedlicher PV Projektgrößen. Der Artikel quantifiziert die Effektivität flexibler Einspeisevergütungs-mechanismen für verschiedene Projektgrößen und nutzt semi-strukturierte Interviews mit deutschen und französischen Projektentwicklern um die Auswirkungen von Einspeise-vergütungen und Ausschreibungen auf Kapitalkosten und Transaktionskosten zu erforschen.Solar energy is the largest energy resource on earth, with resources being clean, sustainable and distributed around the globe. Photovoltaics (PV) technologies directly convert sunlight to electricity. Solar PV can provide multiple economic and environmental benefits to society, and has the highest learning rate in the energy world. The rapid market growth of PV in recent years has been driven by policies to support deployment and technology development. However, PV electricity in many countries is not yet competitive with conventional power generation sources, and therefore needs a financing framework with stable returns. Economic justifications to further support PV technologies include their substitution for fossil fuel technologies with environmental externalities, and the encouragement of technological learning. This dissertation aims to contribute to the development and design of effective and efficient policies to remunerate solar PV power generation. The doctoral thesis consists of three self-contained papers, which can be read independently. Paper I ‘Survey of Photovoltaic Industry and Policy in Germany and China’ focuses on two countries with significant PV policy achievements. While Germany has been the largest market for PV installations for many years, China has become the largest manufacturer of solar cells and modules. Based on an assessment of the technical potential of PV technologies and their required cost reductions to become a competitive electricity source, the paper analyzes the industry structure as well as PV policies used by Germany and China to support research and development, investment in manufacturing plants, and deployment. Paper II ‘Responsive Feed-in Tariff Adjustment to Dynamic Technology Development’ develops an analytic model to simulate PV installations and feed-in tariffs based on project profitability and project duration. As PV deployment around the world has been mainly driven by feed-in tariff policies, this model allows to analyze the effectiveness of different feed-in tariff designs. The analytic framework accurately replicates observed PV market developments in Germany, and is used to analyze different feed-in tariff adjustment mechanisms against multiple PV system price scenarios. Paper III ‘Comparison of Feed-in Tariffs and Tenders to Remunerate Solar Power Generation’ analyzes the trade-offs for using feed-in tariffs or tenders to remunerate different scales of PV projects. The paper quantifies deployment effectiveness of flexible feed-in tariff schemes across project sizes and uses semi-structured interviews with German and French project developers to explore how feed-in tariffs and tenders impact cost of capital and transaction costs