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Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool authors Visions of Energy Futures: Imagining and Innovating Low-Carbon Transitions

INNOPATHS consortium member, Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool has authored a recent book entitled, Visions of Energy Futures: Imagining and Innovating Low-Carbon Transitions, that uses INNOPATHS initial work and findings.

This book examines the visions, fantasies, frames, discourses, imaginaries, and expectations associated with six state-of-the-art energy systems—nuclear power, hydrogen fuel cells, shale gas, clean coal, smart meters, and electric vehicles—playing a key role in current deliberations about low-carbon energy supply and use.

Visions of Energy Futures: Imagining and Innovating Low-Carbon Transitions unveils what the future of energy systems could look like, and how their meanings are produced, often alongside moments of contestation.

Read more about it here.

INNOPATHS initial findings presented at the 24th Conference of the Parties

Dr Elena Verdolini from the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment and INNOPATHS Work Package Leader, presented initial results from the INNOPATHS project, explaining how this project aims to work with key economic and societal actors to generate new, state-of-the-art low-carbon pathways for the European Union. This presentation was part of a side event on ‘energy decarbonisation & coal phase out: financial, technological and policy drivers’ at the COP24 in conjunction with Carbon Tracker, WWF Poland and CEE Bankwatch Network.

This presentation was structured around three key INNOPATHS outputs. First, the “Technology Matrix”, an online database presenting information on the cost of low-carbon technologies and their performance, including both historic and current data, and future estimates. The key feature of this database is the collection of a wide variety of data from different data sources, and the computation of metrics to measure the uncertainty around values. The matrix will thus contribute to mapping technological improvements (and associated uncertainty) in key economic sectors, including energy, buildings and industry. It will show that many low-carbon technologies options are available in certain sectors, but also the specific technological gaps characterizing many hard-to-decarbonize sectors, including aviation, or energy-intensive manufacturing sectors such as chemicals and heavy metals. For these technologies, additional and dedicated Research, Development, Demonstration and Deployment funding will need to be a priority.

The second key output is the “Policy Evaluation Tool”; an online repository of evidence on the effect of policy interventions against key metrics, such as environmental impact (i.e. emission reductions), labour market and competitiveness outcomes. The tool will become a repository of evidence on what approaches and policy instruments work, or do not work, helping policy makers to understand how best to achieve various goals related to the energy transition.

The third key output are insights from INNOPATHS researchers focusing on the financing of the decarbonization process. First, similarly to the process of industrial production, financing costs benefit from “learning-by-financing”, as lenders develop in-house abilities and experience in the selection of renewable energy projects. Second, researchers focus on the importance that public investments can play in signaling change and promoting a shift of investments away from fossil and towards low- and zero-carbon technologies. In this respect, public banks are crucial actors, which can act as catalysts for private investments.

Find out more about the conference here.

Energy Performance of Buildings Directive Revisions: What to Know.

The following is a guest blog by Anthony Gilbert, specialist in real estate and real estate marketing, and owner of The RealFX Group. Improving the energy efficiency of Europe’s buildings is a key element of a successful low-carbon transition. An important focus of the work of INNOPATHS is an examination of the barriers to achieving this objective, and how to overcome them. The blog focusses on the recent revisions to the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which currently sits at the heart of European policy to encourage energy efficiency in buildings.


The EU has recently changed its Energy Performance of Buildings code to encourage the efficiency of older buildings in the union. This move is just one of eight different proposals that seek to reduce the amount of energy used in EU structures. Right now, the building sector accounts for 40% of all energy use in the EU. With 75% of all buildings in Europe described as energy inefficient, these new proposals seek to renovate buildings in an effort to lower energy consumption by up to 6% and COemissions by up to 5%.

Primary Objectives 

These revisions state that smart technology is to be implemented whenever possible to inefficient buildings. Ultimately, this translates to more automation and better control systems. The larger goal for the EU is to hit 0% emissions by the year 2050. Professionals are instructed to use readiness indicators to determine how easy it will be to integrate the new technology into the building.

Ideally, they’ll be able to piece the resulting data together to determine the best renovation strategies for future structures. The EU is trying to capitalize on just how adaptable technology can be. They see these methods as a chance to stabilize the electricity and to drive the union away from the use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions.

The Role of Member States 

The directives of these revisions are deliberately vague to account for the many anomalies and incongruities of renovation and retrofitting. Member States are given the freedom to accomplish these objectives as they see fit. Each neighborhood is allowed to decide the best way to implement the changes based on not only the physical infrastructure but also the environmental obstacles that may stand in the way of ideal working conditions. The larger EU bureaucracy will only interfere if they feel that Member States are not honoring the revisions or otherwise failing to promote sustainability. As they begin promoting more renovations, homeowners and tenants should start to see their energy bills fall.

A Rise in Jobs

The rate of renovation in the EU is currently between .4 – 1.2%, so there’s a lot of room for growth when it comes to installing smarter energy systems. The construction industry in Europe puts 18 million people to work and is responsible for 9% of Europe’s GDP. These new directives give experts in renovations and retrofits more opportunities to put their knowledge to good work, and it gives novices a chance to learn on the job and transform themselves into the energy protectors of tomorrow. These types of radical turnarounds tend to boost jobs in related sectors. The rise in competition usually results in better products and services, which is truly a win-win for both people and the planet.

Improved Lifestyles

Building inefficiency doesn’t just hurt the environment, it can also hurt the people who reside in the buildings. Humidity, dust, and pollutants can hang in the air of a building that lacks the necessary components to circulate it. Vulnerable groups like children and the elderly are particularly susceptible to illness after repeated exposure. The smarter a building is, the more breathable the air will be and the more comfortable the residents will feel. Ultimately, the EU wants everyone to start taking their energy consumption seriously. By starting with the buildings people live and work in, they hope to spur a larger movement that makes it easy to hit their greenhouse gas goals.

Future Goals 

The EU fully understands that is has a long way to go if they’re hoping to stamp out energy inefficiency in a sector as large as the building industry. However, these revisions are truly a step in the right direction. By encouraging Member States to put their energy into smarter building, they inadvertently create demand for green building. As homeowners, building owners, and tenants start to see their health improve and their energy bills become much more affordable, it will create a new standard of living. Leaders believe that this strategy will help them achieve global leadership in promoting renewable energy.

Every country is responsible for promoting their own version of energy efficiency, but the EU seems to have the right idea by dreaming big. Benefits like job creation, better health, and lower utility bills are developments that everyone can support, regardless of their personal views about our responsibility to preserve the planet for future generations.

Anthony Gilbert is the owner of The RealFX Group. Anthony specializes in real estate and real estate marketing, and likes to follow and promote advancements in accessible and efficient technology for homeowners.

Two main ingredients for a successful energy transition? A diverse financial system and the right policies

The discussion and action points for moving to an almost carbon-free energy supply have shifted from developing technologies towards a question of how to most effectively and efficiently implement the energy transition without compromising economic development and well-being [1,2]. Transforming our energy systems into more decentralized and renewable energy sources will require a vast deployment of innovations and, accordingly, huge investment. Estimates for the total investment begin at about USD 700 billion, which amounts to a mere 1% of global GDP [3]. There are two key levers to accomplish this task that are cited in almost every publication and report since the early 2000s. These are the use of private financial resources, and an appropriate policy framework. There has been a lively debate about what enabling elements are required for these elements to drive the transition and “shift the trillions” [4].

Financing energy technology innovation – the need for diversity

There is no doubt that the financial sector could, in principle, finance the transition. The financial system gives direction to the development of the real economy. Its traditional role is to mobilize and transform savings into productive investments. However over the last 20 years, driven by consolidation, the race for efficiency and deregulation and financial markets lost a lot of the diversity that is needed to finance innovation (see Figure 1). Many markets are dominated by just a few banks and institutional investors, which have been severely affected by the 2010 financial and subsequent regulation, driving a lot of risk carrying capacity out of banking and insurance markets, which turn provide financing risk-capital such as venture capitalists. The focus of the ecosystem for financing towards debt and later stages of the innovation cycle creates a bias towards calculable risks and, importantly, the maintenance and expansion of the existing capital stock in existing firms rather than new ventures. New forms of alternative finance innovations (such as crowdfunding or community-based credit unions) that could provide the necessary investments might be able to fill this gap, but their volumes are still (too) small. A very important ‘side-effect’ of increasing the diversity of players in financial markets is that the system as a whole becomes more resilient against shocks. Many different players with many different decision heuristics are less prone to making the same errors (Polzin et al. 2017).

Figure 1: Financial instruments to finance clean energy innovation (Source: Polzin et al. 2017)

Policy framework – clear directions and a choice of instruments

Given the current financial landscape we see two main strands of policy interventions to increase both attractiveness of low-carbon energy technologies and the diversity of sources of finance that can be mobilised.

First, innovation policy such as grants for R&D, demonstration support, risk-sharing facilities, tax-credits or Feed-in Tariffs will attract the necessary early-stage investments for future generations of technologies needed for an energy transition (for example organic batteries or power to gas). To overcome the so-called ‘valley of death’ in the innovation chain, public loans or loan guarantees might be suitable, but the risk of over-funding rapidly growing firms should be taken into account. Governments could also invest directly to create a technology ‘track-record’, important for investors [5]. In the later stages of innovation, especially for renewable energy, depending on the design features, portfolio standards or recently popular capacity auctions, prove effective tools. All these efforts should be embedded in a clear and long-term policy strategy consistent with the commitments of the Paris Agreement to be credible to investors. Consistency, stringency and predictability to reduce deep uncertainty and policy risk are deemed especially crucial.

Second, equally important for achieving a mostly privately-financed energy transition are appropriate financial market conditions and regulations [3]. Unprecedented monetary policies in the Eurozone (Quantitative Easing) have driven the cost of debt finance to zero or below and flooded financial markets with cheap debt finance. Still, only very little of that monetary expansion finds its way into the real economy, let alone into clean energy. Framework conditions for either debt or equity-based instruments influence their contribution to a clean energy transition, as a developed capital market is needed to channel resources. In this regard, a fiscal preferential treatment of debt finance, which is widespread today, should be avoided. Typically, interest is deductable as costs, while dividend payments only occur after tax. Policy makers should try to level the playing field across sources of finance. Furthermore capital market regulation shapes investment mandates and risk models and thus ultimately determines the feasibility and viability of investments into clean energy. Regulation (for example Basel III, Solvency II), especially since the financial crisis, is almost exclusively geared towards stability and security. Hence institutional investors and their intermediaries are forced to stay away from risky asset classes such as venture capital. A no-regret solution would be to require financial intermediaries to lower their overall leverage ratio (debt to equity) and operate with more equity. With more ‘skin in the game’, banks and institutional investors can responsibly handle more risk and uncertainty on their balance sheets. New alternative finance such as equity and debt-based crowdfunding are also becoming more regulated in many countries. Regulators should abstain from clamping down on them, for example through a regulatory sandbox.

In sum, to effectively and efficiently mobilise private finance for innovation and diffusion of low-carbon energy technologies, it is paramount to increase diversity of financial sources available in the market and also, next to an adequate innovation policy, adjust financial market regulations and conditions. The INNOPATHS finance workstream, consisting of ETH Zurich, PIK, Allianz Climate Solutions and Utrecht University will further explore the dynamics finance-energy (innovation)-policy dynamics [see for example 5,6].

Resources:

[1] Mazzucato, M., Semieniuk, G., 2018. Financing renewable energy: Who is financing what and why it matters. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change. 127, 8-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.05.021

[2] Polzin, F., 2017. Mobilizing private finance for low-carbon innovation – A systematic review of barriers and solutions. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.007

[3] Polzin, F., Sanders, M., Täube, F., 2017. A diverse and resilient financial system for investments in the energy transition. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 28, 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.07.004

[4] Germanwatch, 2017. Shifting the Trillions – The Role of the G20 in Making Financial Flows Consistent with Global Long-Term Climate Goals. https://germanwatch.org/en/13482

[5] Geddes, A., Schmidt, T.S., Steffen, B., 2018. The multiple roles of state investment banks in low-carbon energy finance: an analysis of Australia, the UK and Germany. Energy Policy 115, 158–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.01.009

[6] Steffen, B., 2018. The importance of project finance for renewable energy projects. Energy Econ. 69, 280–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2017.11.006

A paradigm shift towards renewable energy finance for Sub-Saharan Africa?

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most promising future markets for renewable energy projects in the coming decades. There is a significant effort from project developers and investors to enter the market but huge obstacles hinder the realisation of such projects. For this reason, Allianz Climate Solutions and the Project Development Programme (implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit under the German Energy Solutions Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy), hosted a workshop in Berlin to discuss possible financing models for CAPEX-free operator models for photovoltaic projects in Ghana and Kenya.

The need for discussion and exchange between investors, project developers and financial institutions as well as policy makers was identified as crucial in order to successfully develop and implement responsive solutions to the upcoming challenges in emerging markets like the Sub-Saharan region.

This blog addresses possible ways of rethinking the transaction process and developing tools for renewable energy projects which could be a step forward to respond to the challenges of emerging markets.

Read full publication here

 

Professor Benjamin Sovacool and Jessica Jewell write piece for The Conversation

On Thursday 8 March 2018, Professor Benjamin Sovacool and Jessical Jewell’s study ‘Fossil fuel subsidies need to go – but what about the poorer people who rely on cheap energy?’ was published in The Conversation.

Professor Benjamin Sovacool is Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the School of Business, Management, and Economics, part of the University of Sussex.  There he serves as Director of the Sussex Energy Group and Director of the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand.

Drawing from a review he did for Ecological Economics, Benjamin has teamed up with Jessica Jewell from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis to write a piece about energy subsidies for The Conversation.

Read full publication here

 

Latest papers published by INNOPATHS

INNOPATHS is a four year EU funded research project that aims to work with key economic and societal actors to generate new, state-of-the-art low-carbon pathways for the European Union. Below is a round-up of the latest research to come from INNOPATHS.

Anadón, L.D., Baker, E., Bosetti, V. (2017) Integrating uncertainty into public energy research and development decisions, Nature 2, Article number: 17071 Free access

Geddes, A., Schmidt, T., Steffen, B. (2018) The multiple roles of state investment banks in low-carbon energy finance: An analysis of Australia, the UK and Germany, Energy Policy 115, 158–170 Free access

Steffen, B. (2018). The importance of project finance for renewable energy projects, Energy Economics 69, 280-294 post-print manuscript

Verdolini, E, Anadon, LD, Baker, ED, Bosetti, V, Reis, L. (2018) The future of energy technologies: an overview of expert elicitations.’ Review of Environmental Economics and Policy Free access

Is the IEA still underestimating the potential of photovoltaics?

Photovoltaics (PV) has become the cheapest source of electricity in many countries. Is it likely that the impressive growth observed over the last decade – every two years, capacity roughly doubled – will be sustained, and is there a limit to the growth of PV? In a recently published article (Creutzig et al 2017), we tackle this question by first scrutinizing why past scenarios have consistently underestimated real-world PV deployment, analyzing future challenges to PV growth, and developing improved scenarios. We find that if stringent global climate policy is enacted and potential barriers to deployment are addressed, PV could cost-competitively supply 30-50% of global electricity by 2050.

A history of underestimation

Any energy researcher knows that projecting energy use and technology deployment is notoriously challenging, and the results are never right. Still, the consistent underestimation of PV deployment across the different publications by various research groups and NGOs is striking. As an example, real-world PV capacity in 2015 was a factor 10 higher than projected by the IEA just 9 years before (IEA, 2006).

A main reason for this underestimation is strong technological learning in combination with support policies. PV showed a remarkable learning curve over the last twenty years: On average, each

doubling of cumulative PV capacity lead to a system price decrease of roughly 20%. With substantial support policies such as feed-in-tariffs in many countries including Germany, Spain and China, or tax credits in the USA, the learning curve was realized much faster than expected, which in turn triggered larger deployments. These factors together have led to an average annual global PV growth rate of 48% between 2006 and 2016.

Can continued fast growth of PV be taken as a given? We think not. Two potential barriers could hinder continued growth along the lines seen over the last decade, if they are not addressed properly: integration challenges, and the cost of financing.

Integration challenge: Many options exist

Output from PV plants is variable, and thus different from the dispatchable output from gas or coal power plants. However, power systems have always had to deal with variability, as electricity demand is highly variable. Thus, a certain amount of additional variability can be added to a power system without requiring huge changes, as examples like Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Lithuania or New Zealand show: In these countries wind and solar power generates more than 20% of total electricity, while maintaining a high quality of power supply (IEA, 2017).

Under certain conditions wind and solar can even increase system stability. In fact, the size of the integration challenge largely depends on how well the generation pattern from renewable plants matches the load curve. Accordingly, in regions with high use of air conditioning such as Spain or the Middle East, adding PV can benefit the grid: On sunny summer afternoons when electricity demand from air conditioning is high, electricity generation from PV is also high.

As the share of solar and wind increases beyond 20-30%, the challenges increase. Still, there are many options for addressing these challenges, including institutional options like grid code reforms or changes to power market designs in order to remove barriers that limit the provision of flexibility, as well as technical options like transmission grid expansion or deployment of short-term  storage (IEA, 2014a). None of these options is a silver bullet, and each has a different relevance in different countries, but together they can enable high generation shares from photovoltaics and wind of 50% and beyond.

Financing costs: international cooperation needed

Many developing countries have a very good solar resource and would benefit strongly from using PV to produce the electricity needed for development. However, because of (perceived) political and exchange rate risks as well as uncertain financial and regulatory conditions, financing costs in most developing countries are above 10% p.a., sometimes even substantially higher.

Why does this high financing cost matter for PV deployment? One of the main differences between a PV plant and a gas power plant is the ratio of up-front investment costs to costs incurred during the lifetime, such as fuel costs or operation and maintenance costs. For a gas power plant, the up-front investment makes up less than 15% of the total (undiscounted) cost, while for a PV plant, it represents more than 70%. Thus, high financing costs are a much stronger barrier for PV – the IEA calculated that even at only 9% interest rate, half of the money for PV electricity is going into interest payments (IEA, 2014b)!

Clearly, reducing the financing costs is a major lever to enable PV growth in developing countries. Financial guarantees from international organizations such as the Green Climate Fund, the World Bank or the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank could unlock huge amounts of private capital at substantially lower interest rates.

Such action could help to leapfrog the coal-intensive development path seen, e.g., in the EU, US, China or India. Replacing coal with PV would alleviate air pollution, which is a major concern in many countries today – in India alone, outdoor air pollution causes more than 600,000 premature deaths per year (IEA, 2016a).

Substantial future PV growth possible if policies are set right

How will future PV deployment unfold if measures to overcome the potential barriers integration and financing are implemented? To answer this question, we use the energy-economy-climate model REMIND and feed it with up-to-date information on technology costs, integration challenges and technology policies. The scenarios show that under a stringent climate policy in line with the 2°C target, PV will become the main pillar of electricity generation in many countries.

energy-economy-climate model REMIND

We find a complete transformation of the power system: Depending on how long the technological learning curve observed over the past decades will continue in the future, the cost-competitive share of PV in 2050 global electricity production would be 30-50%! Our scenarios show that the IEA is still underestimating PV. The capacity we calculate for 2040 is a factor of 3-6 higher than the most optimistic scenario in the 2016 World Energy Outlook (IEA, 2016b).

We conclude that realizing such growth would require policy makers and business to overcome organizational and financial challenges, but would offer the most-affordable clean energy solution for many. As long as important actors underestimate the potential contribution of photovoltaics to climate change mitigation, investments will be misdirected and business opportunities missed. To achieve a stable power system with 20-30% solar electricity in 15 years, the right actions need to be initiated now.

References:

Creutzig, F., Agoston, P., Goldschmidt, J.C., Luderer, G., Nemet, G., Pietzcker, R.C., 2017. The underestimated potential of solar energy to mitigate climate change. Nature Energy 2, nenergy2017140. doi:10.1038/nenergy.2017.140. https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017140

IEA, 2017. Getting  Wind  and  Sun  onto the Grid. OECD, Paris, France.

IEA, 2016a. World Energy Outlook Special Report 2016: Energy and Air Pollution. OECD, Paris, France.

IEA, 2016b. WEO – World Energy Outlook 2016. OECD/IEA, Paris, France.

IEA, 2014a. The Power of Transformation: Wind, Sun and the Economics of Flexible Power Systems. OECD, Paris, France.

IEA, 2014b. Technology Roadmap: Solar photovoltaic energy. OECD/IEA.

IEA, 2006. World Energy Outlook 2006. IEA/OECD, Paris, France.

Author

By Dr. Robert Pietzcker,  Post-doctoral researcher, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

The EU energy system towards 2050: The case of scenarios using the PRIMES model

By P. Capros, M. Kannavou, S. Evangelopoulou, A. Petropolos, P. Siskos, N. Tasios, G. Zazias and A. DeVita

Introduction

In November 2016, the European Commission presented the ‘Clean Energy for all Europeans’, (i.e. ‘Winter package’), a set of measures to keep the European Union competitive as the clean energy transition is changing global energy markets. The package proposes policies in line with the 2030 targets agreed by the European Council in 2014 regarding GHG emissions reduction, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The PRIMES model, developed by E3M, has been used to build the EU Reference Scenario 2016 and support the Impact Assessment studies that accompany the Winter Package [1-4]. Figure 1 shows schematically that individual parts of the Winter Package where the PRIMES model has been used and the various scenarios considered. In addition to the proposals included in the Winter Package, additional framework related to the decarbonisation of transport and the effort sharing amongst Member States towards the reduction of GHG emissions has also been proposed in the context of the targets set by the European Council. PRIMES was also used in those assessments.

PRIMES is a partial equilibrium modelling system that simulates an energy market equilibrium in the European Union and in each of its Member States. The model includes consistent EU carbon price trajectories. It proceeds in five-year steps and uses Eurostat data.

Scenario description

Several scenarios were considered.  The main scenario, EUCO27 is in line 2014 European Council. It considers at least 40% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels), at least 27% share for renewable energy and at least 27% improvement in energy efficiency. Four variants to the EUCO27, considering different levels of energy efficiency improvements (30, 33, 35 and 40%) were also considered to assess the impact of the proposed legal framework on energy efficiency. Other scenarios related to the integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and the functioning of the internal energy market were also developed and used to assess the various implications of the winter package.

All EUCO scenarios are decarbonisation scenarios, i.e. they are compatible with a 2oC trajectory and the EU INDC [5] submitted following the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015. They achieve above 80% GHG emissions reduction in 2050 compared to 1990 levels, in line with the European Commission ‘Energy Roadmap 2050’.

Figure 1: Illustration of European Commission studies which used the EUCO scenarios

The main elements of the EUCO27 and EUCO20 scenarios are shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Climate and energy targets used for the EUCO scenarios

Table 1 shows the main policies used for delivering the climate and energy targets in all scenarios.

Policies ETS Increase of ETS linear factor to 2.2% for 2021-30 (2015/148 (COD)
Market Stability Reserve (2014/0011/COD)
Policies RES RES-E policies: new guidelines for auctions
Policies promoting the use of biofuels
Support of RES in heating
Policies efficiency Energy efficiency of buildings: new EED, enhancement of article 7
More stringent eco-design
Support of heat pumps
Best available techniques in industry
Policies transport CO2 car standards (70-75gCO2/km in 2030, 25 in 2050) and for Vans (120 in 2030, 60 in 2050)
Efficiency standards (1.5% increase per year) for trucks
Measures improving the efficiency of the transport system

Key findings

The projections obtained through the various scenarios reveal the following:

(A) Impacts on GHG Emissions (EUCO27)

The energy related CO2 emissions decrease primarily in the energy supply sectors, notably in the power sector, but also in the demand sectors.

The remaining non-abated emissions by 2050 are by order of magnitude due to  the non-CO2 GHG, the residual use of oil in transport and various small scale uses of gas in the domestic sector and industry

The reductions of emissions in the sectors that participate in the Emissions Trading System (ETS)  exceed those in the non-ETS sectors

The ETS drives strong emission reductions in the power sector and promotes the development of RES which benefit from learning-by-doing requiring low or no out-of-the-market support.

 

(B) RES penetration

Variable renewables (e.g. wind and solar)_ are expected to dominate the power generation sector. The projection shows variable RES capacity to more than double in 2030, from 2015 levels, and quadruple by 2050.

RES in heating and cooling also develop, albeit at a slower pace, driven by heat pumps and RES-based production of heat.

The biofuels in transport constitute the main growing market for bioenergy, as biofuels are essential for reducing emissions in non-electrified transport segments (the RES-T includes for electricity used in transport the RES used in power sector).

(C) Electricity supply mix

Due to the increased penetration of intermittent RES, gas-firing capacities acquire a strategic role for balancing and reserve, a role increasingly performed by storage technologies in the long term. Nuclear plant retrofitting is essential to maintain total nuclear capacity, as investment in new nuclear plants suffers from limitations (sites, financing, etc.).

Coal-firing generation is under strong decline with CCS not becoming a major option.

The model results confirm the importance of sharing balancing and reserve resources across the EU countries and the advantages of market coupling in the day-ahead, intra-day and real-time balancing. The scenarios assume minimization of costs over the pan-European market, which in the mid-term becomes fully integrated.

(D) Energy Efficiency

(E)    Renovation of houses and buildings, the Eco-design regulation, the application of the Best Available Technologies (BAT) in the industry are significant enablers to energy efficiency.

(F)     Electricity consumption hardly increases until 2030.  The energy efficiency improvement drives electricity savings in the short/medium term, and energy savings overall.   Transport electrification and increased use of electricity for heat purposes add significant load, but only after 2030.

 

 

(G) Developments in the transport sector

Advanced car technologies (mainly plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles) dominate the car market as a result of the CO2 car standards, which continuously tighten.

The biofuels, mostly advanced lignocellulose-based fungible biofuels in the long term, get a significant market share in the non-electrified segments of the transport sector (trucks, ships, aircrafts).

(H) Investments and electricity prices

Investment expenditures are likely to rise considerably in the decade 2020-2030 and beyond.

The projections do not see significant pressures on electricity prices in the medium term, but prices are likely to considerably increase in the long term, mainly due to increasing costs of grids and system services.

Moderate increase in total costs relative to the Reference in EUCO27 and EUCO30. There’s considerable increase in investment in the demand sectors when the energy efficiency ambition increases.  The induced technology progress can offset the increase in the energy costs in the long term. The investment expenditures are likely to rise considerably in the decade 2020-30, a crucial decade for the energy transition, also because of the necessity to extend power grids, upgrade power distribution, build vehicle recharging infrastructure and develop advanced biofuels.

The investment requirements in gas-fired plants are significant after 2025 and until 2050, in contrast to the continuous decrease in the rate of use. The investment in nuclear both for extension of lifetime and new plants is also significant.  The investment outlook is dominated by the massive development of variable RES, notably wind and solar.

On average, the prices of electricity in the EUCO scenarios do not increase in 2030 compared to the Reference projection.  The projections do not see significant pressures on electricity prices in the medium term. The electricity sector restructuring, the sharing of resources in the integrated EU market and the technology learning offset the impacts of ETS. The projection of rising electricity prices in the long term is mainly due to the increasing costs of grids, smart systems and system services. However, the prices increase significantly after 2030.

More information on the winter package scenarios is available online at https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/data-analysis/energy-modelling

By Pantelis Capros, Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens and Director of the E3Mlab/ ICCS.

References

[1] European Commission (2016). http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:923ae85f-5018-11e6-89bd-01aa75ed71a1.0002.02/DOC_1&format=PDF

[2] European Commission, COM(2016) 767 final/2, 0382 (COD) (2017) 1–116.

[3] European Commission, COM(2016) 761 final. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/1_en_act_part1_v16.pdf.

[4] European Commission, Impact assessment on the revised rules for the electricity market, risk preparedness and ACER, Eur. Comm. Winter Packag. 5 (2016).

[5] The EU’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution to the UNFCCC.

INNOPATHS: Building a shared vision for the EU energy transition

What are the major challenges that emission intensive sectors face in order to transition towards decarbonization? What technical and organizational innovations can they rely on? What are the key actors involved in the decarbonization process? Who is set to lose, and who is set to benefit, from this major restructuring of EU economies?

Such questions, amongst others, were addressed during six Stakeholder Workshops organized at the CMCC Foundation (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change) offices in Venice on May 3rd and 4th, 2017, as part of the INNOPATHS project. These six workshops, focused on six sectors of particular importance to the low-carbon transition – power, buildings, transport, agriculture, industry and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and allowed for the exchange and discussion of views from invited sector stakeholders on the key actors, technologies and policies of relevance in each sector, and the enablers and barriers to the energy transition.

Discussions in the workshops were very lively. All workshops concluded that a successful decarbonization of the EU economy depends on the presence of well-designed, stable policy instruments, tailored for sector-specific needs and appropriate across diverse EU member states. A key requirement for this is the continual engagement of and dialogue between the policy-making community, technology developers, researchers and the European citizenry. It was noted that, in some cases, institutions and policy instruments were successful in incentivizing innovation through rules, laws and incentive mechanisms. In others, however, they slowed down and sometimes blocked the innovation process for example with the bureaucratic burden, effectively making the decarbonization process more difficult.

Several sector-specific challenges were also discussed.

In the Power Sector, stakeholders agreed that there is a broad consensus on the key generation technologies that will play a role in the transition (e.g., solar PV and gas as a transition mid-term option), although the specific combination and trajectory over time will vary by member state. The real game changers, however, will be the ‘enabling’ technologies – particularly electricity storage – which have the potential to turn the current energy system on its head, by allowing the system to move beyond instantaneous matching of generation and demand. The development of new institutions, and particularly new business models, to support the deployment of these technologies is crucial.

The Buildings Sector faces tremendous challenges, including retrofitting the existing stock for energy efficiency and integrating ICT technologies. Buildings owners and occupants are often unaware of the benefits that could be achieved by investing to increase energy efficiency, and lack of access to finance to pay for high up-front costs with long payback times (over 20 years) compounds the issue. Co-ordination issues in multi-ownership and multi-occupancy buildings are also strong. Government policy must play a crucial role. To address these challenges, it was suggested that it is necessary to foster the retrofitting and the deployment of renewable energy in entire districts, and, to strictly enforce regulation, to invest in making the public aware of the benefits of retrofitting and energy efficiency, and to ensure that the construction industry is better skilled at delivering energy efficiency options.

In the Industry Sector it was argued that much greater potential for energy efficiency gains would come from less rather than more energy-intensive sectors. Indeed, due to the large operating cost energy consumption represents, energy-intensive industries (such as chemicals, steel, cement, and glass) are already incentivized to be as energy efficient as possible. Conversely, in less energy-intensive sectors, such incentives are less strong.  In these sectors, such as food processing, energy efficiency is often overlooked as a potential source of competitive advantage. For this reason, it is crucial that the government help firms identify and accept energy saving opportunities.

Reducing emissions in the Transport Sector was described as a ‘battleground’, with transport effectively being ‘the problem child of climate policy’ due it its diversity: freight, aviation, public and private transport. In this sector the development of new, low carbon business models will be crucial, but other aspects related to social and cultural perceptions (e.g. status effects) also play an extremely important role. Stakeholders disagreed on the most important level of governance – EU, national, or local – for achieving low-carbon transport.

Stakeholders agreed that ICT solutions will be core to the decarbonization of the sectors discussed above. A crucial concern is the amount energy that ICTs themselves consume. However, many of the barriers in this sector are social rather than technical. For example, the potentially overwhelming choice of ICT hardware and applications on the market, and what services these technologies perform and how, may confuse consumers as to which combination is suitable for them, and prevent them making any choice at all.

A significant challenge in the Agriculture Sector is that the principal GHG emissions are Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and Methane (CH4) produced by biological processes, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel combustion. There are therefore limits to the reduction of such emissions whilst demand for agricultural produce remains high and grows. A shift in human diet towards vegetarianism is unlikely to become an important driver of emissions reduction given the current and expected future trend of global meat consumption.

These workshops represent the beginning of what will be a continuous process of stakeholder ‘co-design’ embedded in the INNOPATHS project. While the process will be a complex one, continuous engagement and a connection between different actors – from EU policy makers to individual citizens –  will help ensure that crucial aspects of the low-carbon transition are not overlooked, and are appropriately considered in achieving the core aim of INNOPATHS – the development of generating new, state-of-the-art low-carbon transition pathways for the European Union.

By Elena Verdolini, Scientist, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Alessandra Mazzai, Communications Officer, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) and Paul Drummond, Senior Researcher, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources