The Spatiality of Germany’s Energy Transition: Spatial Aspects of a Reconfiguration of an Energy System

Transportation is a key factor in the fight against climate change. Consumer behavior changes in transportation are underrepresented in energy policies, even if they could be essential to achieve the fixed GHG emission reduction targets. To help quantify the role of behaviors in energy transition and their implications on the dynamics of an energy system, this study is conducted using the North American TIMES Energy Model, adapted to Quebec (Canada). A behavioral disruption scenario (an increase in carpooling) is introduced in the model’s transportation sector and is compared to a massive electrification scenario. Our results highlight the fact that a behavioral disruption can lead to the same GHG emission reductions (65%) by 2050 as an electrification policy, while alleviating different efforts (such as additional electrical capacity and additional costs) associated with massive electrification. Moreover, the results are sensitive to behavior-related parameters, such as social discount rates and car lifetimes.

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The Australian Energy Transition as a Federalism Challenge: (Un)cooperative Energy Federalism?

Transnational Environmental Law ◽

10.1017/s204710252000045x ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-25

Author(s):

Anne Kallies

Keyword(s):

Energy Transition ◽

Energy System ◽

Energy Sector ◽

State Governments ◽

National Importance ◽

Energy Environment ◽

Timely Fashion ◽

Rapid Transition ◽

Legal Frameworks ◽

Cooperative Federalism

Abstract The law and regulation of the energy sector in Australia is subject to overlapping responsibilities of both federal and state governments. Crucially for energy transition efforts, neither energy, environment nor climate is mentioned in the Australian Constitution. Australia has a tradition of creative cooperative federalism solutions for responding to problems of national importance. In the energy sector this has resulted in an intricate national framework for energy markets, which relies on mirror legislation passed by participating states, with oversight by state and federal executive governments. Independently of these frameworks, both federal and state governments have passed climate change legislation, which crucially includes renewable energy support mechanisms. At a time when a rapid transition to a decarbonized energy system is essential, legal frameworks struggle to respond in a timely fashion. The political discourse around energy has become increasingly toxic – reflecting a dysfunctional state–federal relationship in energy and climate law. Australia needs to consider whether its cooperative federalism solutions are sufficient to support the energy transition and how climate law at the state and federal levels interacts with energy market legal frameworks.

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Primary Energy System Chain Security Under the Energy Transition

10.2118/204893-ms ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Osamah Alsayegh

Keyword(s):

Electric Vehicles ◽

Energy Demand ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Supply And Demand ◽

Energy Transition ◽

System Security ◽

Energy System ◽

Primary Energy ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Low Carbon Energy

Abstract This paper examines the energy transition consequences on the oil and gas energy system chain as it propagates from net importing through the transit to the net exporting countries (or regions). The fundamental energy system security concerns of importing, transit, and exporting regions are analyzed under the low carbon energy transition dynamics. The analysis is evidence-based on diversification of energy sources, energy supply and demand evolution, and energy demand management development. The analysis results imply that the energy system is going through technological and logistical reallocation of primary energy. The manifestation of such reallocation includes an increase in electrification, the rise of energy carrier options, and clean technologies. Under healthy and normal global economic growth, the reallocation mentioned above would have a mild effect on curbing the oil and gas primary energy demands growth. A case study concerning electric vehicles, which is part of the energy transition aspect, is presented to assess its impact on the energy system, precisely on the fossil fuel demand. Results show that electric vehicles are indirectly fueled, mainly from fossil-fired power stations through electric grids. Moreover, oil byproducts use in the electric vehicle industry confirms the reallocation of the energy system components' roles. The paper's contribution to the literature is the portrayal of the energy system security state under the low carbon energy transition. The significance of this representation is to shed light on the concerns of the net exporting, transit, and net importing regions under such evolution. Subsequently, it facilitates the development of measures toward mitigating world tensions and conflicts, enhancing the global socio-economic wellbeing, and preventing corruption.

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The Potential Of Simulating Energy Systems: The Multi Energy Systems Simulator Model

10.20944/preprints202107.0146.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Luigi Bottecchia ◽

Pietro Lubello ◽

Pietro Zambelli ◽

Carlo Carcasci ◽

Lukas Kranzl

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Optimal Solution ◽

Energy Systems ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Simulation Models ◽

Energy System ◽

System Modelling ◽

Energy System Model ◽

Urban Level

Energy system modelling is an essential practice to assist a set of heterogeneous stakeholders in the process of defining an effective and efficient energy transition. From the analysis of a set of open source energy system models, it has emerged that most models employ an approach directed at finding the optimal solution for a given set of constraints. On the contrary, a simulation model is a representation of a system that is used to reproduce and understand its behaviour under given conditions, without seeking an optimal solution. Given the lack of simulation models that are also fully open source, in this paper a new open source energy system model is presented. The developed tool, called Multi Energy Systems Simulator (MESS), is a modular, multi-node model that allows to investigate non optimal solutions by simulating the energy system. The model has been built having in mind urban level analyses. However, each node can represent larger regions allowing wider spatial scales to be be represented as well. MESS is capable of performing analysis on systems composed by multiple energy carriers (e.g. electricity, heat, fuels). In this work, the tool’s features will be presented by a comparison between MESS itself and an optimization model, in order to analyze and highlight the differences between the two approaches, the potentialities of a simulation tool and possible areas for further development.

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Development of the Technical Structure of the “Cow Energy” Concept

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11101915 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (10) ◽

pp. 1915

Author(s):

Heinz Bernhardt ◽

Martin Höhendinger ◽

Jörn Stumpenhausen

Keyword(s):

Energy Management ◽

Energy Production ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Energy System ◽

Energy Management System ◽

Regional Energy ◽

Energy Networks ◽

Energy Concept ◽

Technical Structure ◽

Central Energy

Regional energy supply is an important topic in the context of the energy transition in Germany. The “Cow Energy” project aims to combine the production of energy and milk for the farmer. In order to take the different needs into account, a central energy management system (EMS) is being established. This system records and simulates how much electricity is generated from renewable sources (biogas, solar, wind, etc.) on the farm. This is compared with the consumption of the barn technology (milking robot, feeding robot, etc.). This energy management is regulated according to the needs of the cows. In order to balance the fluctuations between energy production and energy consumption, the EMS regulates various battery systems. One goal is to network this energy system with the region and to establish regional energy networks.

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Assessing the energy transition in China towards carbon neutrality with a probabilistic framework

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-27671-0 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Shu Zhang ◽

Wenying Chen

Keyword(s):

Energy Transition ◽

Energy System ◽

Monte Carlo Analysis ◽

Primary Energy ◽

Consumption Pattern ◽

Peak Time ◽

Carbon Neutrality ◽

Transition Costs ◽

Welfare Losses ◽

Removal Technologies

AbstractA profound transformation of China’s energy system is required to achieve carbon neutrality. Here, we couple Monte Carlo analysis with a bottom-up energy-environment-economy model to generate 3,000 cases with different carbon peak times, technological evolution pathways and cumulative carbon budgets. The results show that if emissions peak in 2025, the carbon neutrality goal calls for a 45–62% electrification rate, 47–78% renewable energy in primary energy supply, 5.2–7.9 TW of solar and wind power, 1.5–2.7 PWh of energy storage usage and 64–1,649 MtCO2 of negative emissions, and synergistically reducing approximately 80% of local air pollutants compared to the present level in 2050. The emission peak time and cumulative carbon budget have significant impacts on the decarbonization pathways, technology choices, and transition costs. Early peaking reduces welfare losses and prevents overreliance on carbon removal technologies. Technology breakthroughs, production and consumption pattern changes, and policy enhancement are urgently required to achieve carbon neutrality.

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Is Green Recovery Enough? Analysing the Impacts of Post-COVID-19 Economic Packages

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14175567 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (17) ◽

pp. 5567

Author(s):

Pedro R. R. Rochedo ◽

Panagiotis Fragkos ◽

Rafael Garaffa ◽

Lilia Caiado Couto ◽

Luiz Bernardo Baptista ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Energy Use ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Energy System ◽

Paris Agreement ◽

Investment Planning ◽

Climate Policies ◽

Climate Action ◽

Support Employment ◽

Societal Changes

Emissions pathways after COVID-19 will be shaped by how governments’ economic responses translate into infrastructure expansion, energy use, investment planning and societal changes. As a response to the COVID-19 crisis, most governments worldwide launched recovery packages aiming to boost their economies, support employment and enhance their competitiveness. Climate action is pledged to be embedded in most of these packages, but with sharp differences across countries. This paper provides novel evidence on the energy system and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions implications of post-COVID-19 recovery packages by assessing the gap between pledged recovery packages and the actual investment needs of the energy transition to reach the Paris Agreement goals. Using two well-established Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) and analysing various scenarios combining recovery packages and climate policies, we conclude that currently planned recovery from COVID-19 is not enough to enhance societal responses to climate urgency and that it should be significantly upscaled and prolonged to ensure compatibility with the Paris Agreement goals.

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The Contribution of Natural Gas to the Paradigm of Energy Transition in Portugal: Economy, Continuity of Supply and Welfare

10.12944/jbsfm.02.01-02.07 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (1-2) ◽

pp. 56-67

Author(s):

Nuno Domingues

Keyword(s):

Natural Gas ◽

Deductive Reasoning ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Energy System ◽

Environmental Aspects ◽

Secondary Sources ◽

Pull Out ◽

The Government ◽

The Impact

The present paper presents an analysis on the role of Natural Gas (NG) in Portugal facing the new requirements. The analyses is based on the economic, societal and environmental aspects, being the major reasons to align the Government strategy, define policies and reproduce the EU directives. The analyses do not reflect on the pandemic and financial crisis because the author considers that these factors are outside of the energy system and have not been steady along the period in study, thereby it can mislead the conclusions. This study relies mostly on non-empirical research, in which the research adopted both inductive and deductive reasoning to theorize logical assumptions about the Portuguese energy market. Building on reflection and personal observation on the field, the researchers carried out this article by gathering relevant data (i.e., statistics) through critical studies, systematic review of literature and meta-analysis on the theme. Therefore, the methodology used is based mainly on qualitative exploration of secondary sources and data, out of which one will pull out insights. The novelty of the study is to take in consider-ation all the above factors and produce results that are more adequate to reality, as all of them are interconnected and by changing one of them it will be changes in the remain. The open literature mainly focusses on the economic, the energetic, the social or the environmental aspects and neglects the others. One can conclude that there is economic advantage on efficiently distributing and consuming NG. Also, the impact of NG on a society welfare is positive. Last, the NG brings flexibility to the grid, which is more and more important in the perspective and ambition to increase the share of intermittent renewable energies.

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