scholarly journals Powering a Sustainable and Circular Economy—An Engineering Approach to Estimating Renewable Energy Potentials within Earth System Boundaries

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Desing ◽  
Rolf Widmer ◽  
Didier Beloin-Saint-Pierre ◽  
Roland Hischier ◽  
Patrick Wäger

This study proposes a method to estimate the appropriability of renewable energy resources at the global scale, when Earth system boundaries/needs and the human demand for chemical energy are respected. The method is based on an engineering approach, i.e., uncertainties of parameters and models are considered and potentials calculated with 99 % confidence. We used literature data to test our method and provide initial results for global appropriable technical potentials (ATP) that sum up to 71 TW , which is significantly larger than the current global energy demand. Consequently, there is sufficient renewable energy potentially available to increase energy access for a growing world population as well as for a development towards increasingly closed material cycles within the technosphere. Solar energy collected on the built environment ( 29 % ) and in desert areas ( 69 % ) represent the dominant part of this potential, followed in great distance by hydro ( 0.6 % ), terrestrial heat ( 0.4 % ), wind ( 0.35 % ), and biomass ( 0.2 % ). Furthermore, we propose indicators to evaluate an energy mix on different levels, from an energy mix in single products to the mix used by the global economy, against the estimated RE potentials, which allow an evaluation and consideration in the design of sustainable–circular products and systems.

2020 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 03006
Author(s):  
Shambalid Ahady ◽  
Nirendra Dev ◽  
Anubha Mandal

Energy access is not only crucial for economic growth but also important for any strategy to improve the health and social welfare of a nation. Afghanistan’s energy industry is in poor condition due to many years of war and negligence. Despite international agencies’ support and energy policies adopted in the last few years, Afghanistan has no universal access to power. Besides, the residences suffer from an irregular distribution of power supply. There is a growing gap between demand and supply, and the current predictions of demand do not show reality due to hindered economic growth. Afghanistan’s domestic power transmission is limited, which must be extended for the country to enjoy a stable and sustainable energy supply. Sustainability and security of Afghanistan’s power sector would rely on its ability to become self-reliant in power generation. Overall, the objective of this paper is to summarize the current energy status of Afghanistan and to identify energy opportunities for self-sufficiency and challenges in various aspects of energy sources. To meet energy demand, Afghanistan can develop its autochthonous hydrocarbon and renewable energy resources. By improving its domestic energy potential from natural resources, Afghanistan can fulfill its primary energy requirement. Further, along with policy formulation, appropriate and planned implementation of renewable energy policy, energy efficiency targets, and strategies, Afghanistan can reach energy self-sufficiency goals with socio-economic development.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Mafizur Rahman ◽  
Feroza Begum

<span lang="EN-GB">The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of renewable energy resources in Bangladesh, as well as to examine various forms of renewable energies in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to address Bangladesh's power crisis issues in a sustainable manner. Electricity is currently the most useful kind of energy in Bangladesh. It has a substantial influence on a country's socioeconomic standing and living standards. Maintaining a stable source of energy at a cost that is affordable to everyone has been a constant battle for decades. Bangladesh is blessed with a wealth of natural resources. Bangladesh has a huge opportunity to accelerate its economic development while increasing energy access, livelihoods, and health for millions of people in a sustainable way due to the renewable energy system.</span>


Author(s):  
Praveen Cheekatamarla ◽  
Vishaldeep Sharma ◽  
Bo Shen

Abstract Economic and population growth is leading to increased energy demand across all sectors – buildings, transportation, and industry. Adoption of new energy consumers such as electric vehicles could further increase this growth. Sensible utilization of clean renewable energy resources is necessary to sustain this growth. Thermal needs in a building pose a significant challenge to the energy infrastructure. Supporting the current and future building thermal energy needs to offset the total electric demand while lowering the carbon footprint and enhancing the grid flexibility is presented in this study. Performance assessment of heat pumps, renewable energy, non-fossil fuel-based cogeneration systems, and their hybrid configurations was conducted. The impact of design configuration, coefficient of performance (COP), electric grid's primary energy efficiency on the key attributes of total carbon footprint, life cycle costs, operational energy savings, and site-specific primary energy efficiency are analyzed and discussed in detail.


Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed T. El-Ashry

The world is entering a new energy era marked by concerns over energy security, climate change, and access by the poor to modern energy services. Yet the current energy path is not compatible with sustainable development objectives. Global demand for energy will continue to grow; so will CO2 emissions. Achieving a low-carbon energy world will require an unprecedented technological transformation in the way energy is produced and used. That transformation has begun, as renewables capacity continues to grow, prices continue to fall, and shares of global energy from renewables continue to increase. Government policies are the main driver behind renewable energy's meteoric growth. Still, the world is tapping only a small amount of the vast supply of renewable energy resources. There is broad consensus that the role of these resources should be expanded significantly in order to meaningfully address energy security, energy access, and climate change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
Tran Viet Dung

AbstractVietnam has experienced an economic growth accompanied by increasing energy demand and inadequate supplies. Like most developing countries, the increased inefficient use of energy in Vietnam leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions and high energy costs for consumers. Also, the traditional sources of energy are not sufficient to satisfy the demand of the economic sectors.With the negative impact of climate change on water resources and the depletion of coal, oil and gas reserves, Vietnam must diversify and integrate other forms of renewable energies into its energy mix. The efficient use of renewable energy resources can boost economic development. Thus, the policies for endorsing renewable energies and energy efficiency are playing a vital role in ensuring the sustainable development for Vietnam’s future. This paper examines the legal and policy framework influencing the deployment of renewable energies and energy efficiency in Vietnam. The paper also attempts to identify major barriers to a large scale deployment of renewable energies and energy efficiency technologies and offers some possible solutions.


Author(s):  
Atmonobudi Soebagio ◽  
Bambang Widodo

Indonesia is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources. Nevertheless, they have only been used to cover about 5% of the total national energy demand.   To optimize their utilization, the government has to make and implement a policy that will encourage PLN costumers to help increase their on-grid power supply capacity. This policy will provide benefits for islands that are already equipped with PLN power grids. This paper uses Solar Power Plants and household costumers as models to calculate potential on-grid power increase which can be contributed by PLN costumers. A two-way power meter is used to replace the currently used one. This model will be applied to the  conventional grid to demonstrate the compatibility that show how it is applicable even without upgrading the conventional grid to become   smart grid system. The result shows that customers can participate significantly through the flow of their excess energy to grid.


2020 ◽  
pp. 182-219
Author(s):  
Aliaksei PATONIA ◽  

Iceland — an independent republic — and Greenland — an autonomous country within Denmark — represent two nations with similar geographical, economic, and historical backgrounds. Isolated from the continents, both are significantly affected by an adverse climate, making their economies dependent on trade and import. Nevertheless, despite their similarities, their national energy patterns differ substantially. Specifically, Iceland covers most of its energy mix with local renewables, whereas Greenland meets most of the energy demand with imported hydrocarbons. This paper investigates the reasons for Greenland lagging behind Iceland in terms of developing renewable energy resources. It hypothesises that, apart from the commonly-mentioned geographical, institutional, and cultural factors, the difference in social capital level has significantly contributed to the countries’ divergent energy strategies. In this sense, Iceland’s higher social capital stock stimulates its renewable power progress, whereas Greenland’s lower social capital level hampers it. To examine this hypothesis, the article constructs a ‘social capital tripod’, which assumes specific geographical, institutional, and cultural factors to be linked to renewable energy development through social capital. The findings demonstrate that Greenland, being dependent on hydrocarbon import, has a significantly lower expected level of social capital than Iceland, which runs mostly on renewables, therefore generally aligning with the research hypothesis.


2014 ◽  
Vol 699 ◽  
pp. 853-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Debebe Woldeyohannes ◽  
Dereje Engida Woldemichael ◽  
Lim Chye Ing ◽  
Eng Ze Ru

This paper aims to address the issues related to renewable energy (RE) resources optimization at rural areas. A transportation algorithm is proposed in order to optimize the utilization of renewable energy and allocate various renewable energy resources to different demand stations. A rural area in Sarawak, Malaysia is selected as a pilot area for implementing the proposed method. The total annual energy demand for the pilot research area is 860,567.12 kWh, while the annual renewable energy potentially available is 879,419.48 kWh. The simulation results of this transportation model reflect that although there is a potential for solar and wind energy at the selected rural area, the model has selected hydropower and biomass as a more viable option. The results obtained from the proposed transportation model have been verified with the results of other RE studies. It is proven that the developed model could be used as a decision making tool to evaluate application of various alternative renewable energy resources and to determine the optimal location for development of these resources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Çağdaş Gönen ◽  
Elif Kaplanoğlu

Owing to rising population and increasing energy demand, renewable energy resources become the most convenient and promising solution. Hence, solar power plant investments and photovoltaic module numbers have risen sharply. Turkey is one of the tight followers of the energy trends, thanks to its rising energy demand and economic power. However, the consequences of the massive plant wastes importance in term of economically and environmentally have not been understood yet. Almost 70% of the modules are formed by glass and the rest accumulates economically valuable metal materials, which are silver, aluminium and copper. These three main materials are substantially important in the overall waste. Not only the economic value, but also the environmental impacts of the mining effluents to excavate these metals are causing emission problems. As a chain reaction, the higher energy demand triggers a search for new and renewable energy resources. This is why popularity of solar energy has increased. Solar energy can be absorbed and transformed through photovoltaic modules, which contain glass and three main metals. In order to respond for the production of modules, metals are fundamental. This need triggers the need of metals mining excavations and emissions. In this respect, in the near future, thanks to the rising investments on photovoltaic modules and the CO2 emissions coming from mining, the wastes of photovoltaic modules and the need of recycling will become more important. That is why, in this study it is aimed to present environmental benefits and economic recoveries of recycling photovoltaic module in Turkey.


2015 ◽  
Vol 787 ◽  
pp. 888-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Dhivya ◽  
V. Chamundeeswari ◽  
R. Seyezhai

TThe growing energy demand in recent years has led to increased use of renewable energy resources. Among all renewable energy sources, the photovoltaic (PV) power generation acts as a green source which is free from greenhouse emissions to provide feasible solution to the increasing energy demand. However the non-linear nature of the solar module, their low-efficiency and high capital cost is being the major hindrance to the penetration and reach of the solar photovoltaic systems. To overcome this non-linearity, this paper presents the implementation of Negative Output Super-Lift Luo converter (NOSLC) with the solar panel. NOSLC is a type of super-lift converter in which the negative output voltage increases in geometric progression. Along with this, to track the maximum power from the PV cell, a technique named Perturb and Observe (P&O) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) is employed. This proposed system is modelled and simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and validated with the theoretical calculations.


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