Shaping Our Future With Sustainable Energy: A Direction From Young Engineers

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Fabian Feldhoff ◽  
Carina Hofmann ◽  
Stefan Hübner ◽  
Jan Oliver Kammesheidt ◽  
Martin Kilbane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Global Energy ◽  
Sustainable Energy System ◽  
The U.S

It is broadly accepted that current energy systems should become more sustainable in both a global and local context. However, setting common goals and shared objectives and determining the appropriate means by which to get there is the subject of heavy debate. Therefore, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the German Association of Engineers (VDI) initiated a joint project aimed at providing a young engineers’ perspective to the global energy conversation. The young engineer project teams set a common goal of assembling a completely sustainable energy system for the U.S. and Germany by 2050. This includes not only the electricity market, but the overall energy system. Based on the current global energy paradigm, a completely sustainable energy system seems very ambitious. However, multiple analyses show that this path is possible and would in the medium to long run not only be desirable, but also competitive in the market. This future ‘energy puzzle’ consists of many important pieces, and the overall picture must be shaped by an overarching strategy of sustainability. Besides the many detailed pieces, four main critical issues must be addressed by engineers, politicians and everybody else alike. These challenges are: i) Rational use of energy: This uncomfortable topic is rather unappealing to communicate, but is a key issue to reduce energy demand and to meet the potentials of renewable energy carriers. ii) Balancing of electricity demand and generation: This is a challenge to the electricity markets and infrastructures that are currently designed for base-load, mainly fossil power plants. The overall mix of renewable energy generation, storage technologies, grid infrastructure, and power electronics will decide how efficient and reliable a future energy system will be. iii) Cost efficiency and competitiveness: It is a prerequisite for industrialized countries to stay competitive and to establish RE in the market. Developing economic technologies while at the same time establishing a strong RE market is the secret of success. iv) Acceptance of the system and its consequences: The best energy strategy cannot be realized without broad public acceptance for it. Therefore, the understanding of the energy technologies and an objective discussion must be promoted — without old fashioned emotionalizing of certain risks. The paper will present details on the four mentioned aspects, compare the situations between the U.S. and Germany, and propose solutions for appropriate political frame conditions to achieve a sustainable energy system.

scholarly journals Enough Metals? Resource Constraints to Supply a Fully Renewable Energy System

Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Moreau ◽  
Piero Dos Reis ◽  
François Vuille
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Global Energy ◽  
Renewable Energy Technologies ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Renewable Energy System

The transition from a fossil fuel base to a renewable energy system relies on materials and, in particular, metals to manufacture and maintain energy conversion technologies. Supply constraints shift from fossil fuels to mineral resources. We assess the availability of metal reserves and resources to build an energy system based exclusively on renewable energy technologies. A mass balance of 29 metals embodied in renewable energy technologies is compiled in order to satisfy global energy demand, based on five authoritative energy scenarios for 2050. We expand upon these scenarios by modeling the storage capacity needed to support high shares of intermittent renewables (wind and solar). The metal requirements are then compared with the current demand and proven reserves and ultimate mineable resources. This allows us to distinguish between constraints related to renewable energy sources from those linked to technology mixes. The results show that proven reserves and, in specific cases, resources of several metals are insufficient to build a renewable energy system at the predicted level of global energy demand by 2050. The comparison between reserves and resources shows that scarcity relates sometimes more to techno economic supply than to raw material availability. Our results also highlight the importance of substitution among technologies and metals as well as the limited impact of recycling on the depletion of scarce metals.

scholarly journals The impact of renewable energy and sector coupling on the pathway towards a sustainable energy system in Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 111557
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Osorio-Aravena ◽  
Arman Aghahosseini ◽  
Dmitrii Bogdanov ◽  
Upeksha Caldera ◽  
Narges Ghorbani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Sustainable Energy System ◽  
The Impact

Economic analysis of a small combined cycle gas turbine power plant in the Italian electricity market

2020 ◽  
pp. 095765092097605
Author(s):  
Dominique Adolfo ◽  
Carlo Carcasci
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Alternative Energy ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Operation Mode ◽  
Market Price ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Combined Cycle

Despite the availability of new alternative energy sources, growing worldwide energy demand and emissions targets lead power plants to work optimizing performances. In this new scenario in which renewable energies are increasingly taking the field, it is also important to produce energy at a low price. Moreover, the variability of the energy market price complicates the analysis. Comparison between the produced energy cost and the market price is necessary to get a return on investment. In this context, the paper investigates the implications of using a gas turbine in an energy system estimating the plant layout and the number of working hours that guarantees a better profit. The analysis focuses on the study of the start-up and shutdown operation mode to find the optimal solution strategy in the Italian electricity market.

Why We Need High-tech Politics to Make Renewables a Success Story

Green ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Goldammer ◽  
Ulrich Mans
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Energy System ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Energy Infrastructure ◽  
Sustainable Energy System ◽  
The Way

AbstractWith the continued growth of renewable energy technologies, major changes are under way in a growing number of energy systems across the globe. Wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric and geothermal solutions experience an impressive boom and have created a new business sector worth US$243 billion in 2011. This trend is not caused by recent breakthroughs in engineering; in fact most of the technology has been around for some time. The way we organize our energy infrastructure is not primarily a technical matter; it is above all a political decision. The scale-up of renewable energy supplies at the cost of today's fossil-fuel dominated energy infrastructure is a systemic transition from one technology regime to another and thus requires political leadership for setting the targets, guiding institutional change, freeing resources and deciding on the relevant regulations. Today's energy systems are based on well-established routines and – as any other existing societal arrangement – are governed by a certain degree of lock-in: because people are generally happy to do things the way they have done it in the past, they are unlikely to embrace change quickly. These “lock-ins” shape, to a large extent, the speed of change as well as the type of solutions required in order to leave behind what works for today in favor of what we want to work for tomorrow. This article provides an overview of recent developments in the energy systems in Germany, California and Japan. We show that in order to appreciate the dilemma's that arise when creating a more sustainable energy system, we need to understand the local political landscape and how it influences decision-making processes. Looking at the three regions, it becomes evident that the level of political leadership determines much of what technology can do to facilitate innovation in the field of sustainable energy.

scholarly journals 100% Renewable Energy Scenarios for North America—Spatial Distribution and Network Constraints

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 658
Author(s):  
Elmar Zozmann ◽  
Leonard Göke ◽  
Mario Kendziorski ◽  
Citlali Rodriguez del Angel ◽  
Christian von Hirschhausen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
North America ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
State Level ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Energy System Model

The urgency to combat climate change and the widely distributed, increasingly competitive renewable resources in North America are strong arguments to explore scenarios for a renewable energy supply in the region. While the current power system of North America is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, namely natural gas, coal and oil, and some nuclear power plants, some current policies at the state level, and future federal policies are likely to push the share of different renewable sources available in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. This paper explores three scenarios for a renewable energy supply, using a bottom-up energy system model with a high level of spatial and time granularity. The scenarios span the extremes with respect to connecting infrastructure: while one scenario only looks at state-level supply and demand, without interconnections, the other extreme scenario allows cross-continental network investments. The model results indicate that the North American continent (a) has sufficient renewable potential to satisfy its energy demand with renewables, independent of the underlying grid assumption, (b) solar generation dominates the generation mix as the least-cost option under given renewable resource availability and (c) simultaneous planning of generation and transmission capacity expansion does not result in high grid investments, but the necessary flexibility to integrate intermittent renewable generation is rather provided by the existing grid in combination with short-term and seasonal storages.

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