scholarly journals Clean Electricity, Dirty Electricity: The Effect on Local House Prices

Author(s):  
Piet Eichholtz ◽  
Nils Kok ◽  
Mike Langen ◽  
Daan van Vulpen

AbstractRenewable energy production is one of the most important policy instruments to fight climate change. However, despite global benefits, renewable energy production entails some local challenges, such as requiring more space per unit production capacity. In this paper, we study the external effects of large-scale conventional and renewable electric power generation facilities on local house prices. We combine information of all coal, gas, and biomass plants, as well as all wind turbines in the Netherlands, with 1.5 million housing transactions over a period of 30 years. Using a difference-in-difference as well as a repeated sales model, we study the effects of facility openings and closings. Our results show negative external price effects for gas plants and wind turbines, but positive effects for biomass plants, conditionally upon ex-ante lower priced locations. The external effects of power generating facilities on local housing markets are important to consider, especially with the current focus of public policies on the expansion of renewable energy generation. Our paper is one of the first to present a large-scale study, using detailed information, and comparing several different energy sources in one framework.

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-596
Author(s):  
Olivia Rossi ◽  
Arvind Chandrasekaran

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to answer this question by discussing the practicality of implementing microreactor technology towards large-scale renewable energy generation, as well as provide an incentive for future researchers to utilize microreactors as a useful alternative tool for green energy production. However, can microreactors present a viable solution for the generation of renewable energy to tackle the on-going global energy crisis? Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the practicality of implementing microreactor technology toward large-scale renewable energy generation is discussed. Specific areas of interest that elucidate considerable returns of microreactors toward renewable energy production are biofuel synthesis, hydrogen conversion and solar energy harvesting. Findings It is believed that sustained research on microreactors can significantly accelerate the development of new energy production methods through renewable sources, which will undoubtedly aid in the quest for a greener future. Originality/value This work aims to provide a sound judgement on the importance of research on renewable energy production and alternative energy management methods through microreactor technology, and why future studies on this topic should be highly encouraged. The relevance of this opinion paper lies in the idea that microreactors are an innovative concept currently used in engineering to significantly accelerate chemical reactions on microscale volumes; with the feasibility of high throughput to convert energy at larger scales with much greater efficiency than existing energy production methods.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaqueline Drücke ◽  
Michael Borsche ◽  
Paul James ◽  
Frank Kaspar ◽  
Uwe Pfeifroth ◽  
...  

<p>Renewable energies, like solar and wind energy, play an important role in current and future energy supply in Germany and Europe. The renewable energy production highly depends on weather, which leads to an increasing impact of the meteorological fluctuations on energy production.</p><p>Here, climatological datasets with high spatial and temporal resolution are used to simulate the electrical energy production from photovoltaic (PV) installations and wind turbines. For the solar radiation the CM SAF SARAH 2.1 dataset is used, which includes global and direct radiation with a temporal resolution of 30 minutes and a grid spacing of 0.05°. The data is available from 1983 to 2017. The regional reanalysis COSMO-REA6 provides hourly wind speed data from 1995 to 2015 with a spatial resolution of 6km. Based on these datasets capacity factors are calculated for PV and wind energy for Germany. Using the spatial distribution of solar panels and wind turbines as well as electrical power generation data from 2015 the simulated capacity factors were converted into (potential) hourly power generation in Germany from 1995 to 2015. </p><p>The main aim of this study is to identify weather regimes where renewable energy production from solar and wind was comparable low. Due to high power production from solar radiation, which exhibits a comparable low variability and high predictability, in summer, all low production events occur in winter. During winter, wind power is the main contributor to renewable energy production. On the basis of the hourly time series of simulated power production the weather regimes that are associated with multiple days of low renewable energy production are identified and analysed. European regions are identified that exhibit comparably high potential renewable power production for those weather regimes with low energy production in Germany.  </p>


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (19) ◽  
pp. 6225
Author(s):  
Justyna Godawska ◽  
Joanna Wyrobek

Various environmental policy instruments supporting the development of renewable energy are used on an increasing scale as part of the policy of mitigating climate change and more. In our paper, we examine the influence of environmental policy stringency on renewable energy production in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia for the period 1993–2012 after controlling for gross domestic product per capita growth, CO2 emissions per capita and income inequality. We use the Panel Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive Distributive Lag model to analyze the long-run and the short-run relationship between restrictiveness of environmental policy and renewable energy generation. The results reveal that, in the long run, a more stringent environmental policy has a positive impact both on the increase in the absolute volume of renewable energy production, as well as on the replacement of energy from fossil sources. Our main findings indicate that renewable energy production is positively influenced not only by the stringency of instruments aimed directly at the development of this energy sector, but also by the stringency of instruments with other environmental goals and by the overall level of restrictiveness of the environmental policy.


Author(s):  
Johannes Idsø ◽  
Torbjørn Årethun

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new way of producing renewable energy based on fjords as a water heater. We will call this system the Water-thermal Energy Production System (WEPS), because the basic idea is to extract heating and cooling energy from water. Although a prototype of WEPS has existed in Norway for more than ten years, a WEPS currently in operation has not been financially analyzed in the literature. Coastal parts of Norway have a potential of 5 TWh of profitable WEPS-facilities [9], due to convenient access to fjords containing water with stable all-season temperatures of about 4–12C when the depth of the water is about 50 meters. This stability of the water temperature makes it possible to extract energy from the fjord in a very efficient way. The potential for economically-profitable WEPS in other parts of the world has not been estimated. In order to answer such a question, more research is required. We have conducted a case study of a WEPS located in the Norwegian municipality of Eid. This is the first full-scale Norwegian WEPS, and it has been operating since 2006. The nascent years have passed, and the technology has been in operation for some years. In this paper, we have made an estimate of the business profitability and the external effects based on past empirical evidence and some assumptions about future development in some key figures. The results suggests that WEPS-Eid has been a profitable investment carrying a positive internal rate of revenue, even if the present underutilization in production capacity will continue in the future. Stability in energy prices for heating purposes has also gained customers compared to the more volatile prices of alternative renewable energy, like hydropower or wind turbines. The negative, external effects in the operating phase from WEPS-Eid are insignificant. Despite the significant profitability of the WEPS facility in Eid, there are two main obstacles for new entrants. There is a lack of relevant operational information for potential investors due to few facilities. This leads to uncertainty, and investments in WEPS appear as a risky business. Secondly, construction of a WEPS requires both big financial investments in digging and facilitating long trenches for a pipeline system and time and effort spent on acquiring the licenses needed for doing this work. A coordinating unit is probably required in order to get the necessary public and private licenses and to reduce fixed costs by coordinating other tasks in the same trenches, like pipes for water and sewer, fiber cables and tele-cables. In Eid, the local municipal administration was the coordinating unit.


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