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In 2018, the European Union (EU) adopted a recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), setting the framework for a common EU-wide 2030 target of 32.5% renewables in final energy consumption, for which Member States shall set national contributions. To address the disparities in national targets, the EU introduced three cooperation mechanisms: statistical transfers, joint support schemes, and joint projects. This paper provides an assessment of the utilization of cooperation mechanisms by Member States to meet the 2020 renewable energy target, offering recommendations for the RED III implementation. It analyzes the motivations of both buyer and seller countries, examines the patterns observed in concluded agreements, and interprets the dynamics of the market. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, incorporating a literature review, analysis of official statistics and cooperation agreements, and interviews with government representatives involved in implementing these mechanisms. The study reveals areas for improvement and raises questions about the efficacy of the instruments and their alternatives. To enhance the effectiveness of renewable cooperation mechanisms, a more systemic approach is necessary. The proposed new financing mechanism can ensure certainty in financial allocation and support larger joint projects of European significance. Furthermore, it is anticipated that statistical transfers will continue to be utilized due to established bilateral relationships and the need for last-minute adjustments to achieve renewable energy targets. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in advancing renewable cooperation mechanisms and driving the EU's progress towards a climate-neutral continent by 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropower contributes to a higher share of renewables but is also in conflict with environmental legislation aiming to protect natural habitats, wildlife and endangered species. Analysing two neighbouring European countries with similar topographical and hydromporphological characteristics, Austria and Slovenia, allows assessing to what extent a policies’ national context steers possible policy conflicts of EU legislation. The paper shows that hydropower expansion in examined countries is strongly shaped by factors such as financial concerns of investors, diverging opinions of involved stakeholders, available hydro potential and the role of hydropower in national energy strategies. Addressing issues that lead to a lower effectiveness of national policies already at the level of EU policy design or engaging countries to broadening their national energy portfolio by considering emerging technologies such as PV and wind will enable future energy and climate strategies that are more consistent with other environmental goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accuracy of transcript quantification with RNA-Seq is negatively affected by positional fragment bias. This article introduces Mix2 (rd. “mixquare”), a transcript quantification method which uses a mixture of probability distributions to model and thereby neutralize the effects of positional fragment bias. The parameters of Mix2 are trained by Expectation Maximization resulting in simultaneous transcript abundance and bias estimates. We compare Mix2 to Cufflinks, RSEM, eXpress and PennSeq; state-of-the-art quantification methods implementing some form of bias correction. On four synthetic biases we show that the accuracy of Mix2 overall exceeds the accuracy of the other methods and that its bias estimates converge to the correct solution. We further evaluate Mix2 on real RNA-Seq data from the Microarray and Sequencing Quality Control (MAQC, SEQC) Consortia. On MAQC data, Mix2 achieves improved correlation to qPCR measurements with a relative increase in R2 between 4% and 50%. Mix2 also yields repeatable concentration estimates across technical replicates with a relative increase in R2 between 8% and 47% and reduced standard deviation across the full concentration range. We further observe more accurate detection of differential expression with a relative increase in true positives between 74% and 378% for 5% false positives. In addition, Mix2 reveals 5 dominant biases in MAQC data deviating from the common assumption of a uniform fragment distribution. On SEQC data, Mix2 yields higher consistency between measured and predicted concentration ratios. A relative error of 20% or less is obtained for 51% of transcripts by Mix2, 40% of transcripts by Cufflinks and RSEM and 30% by eXpress. Titration order consistency is correct for 47% of transcripts for Mix2, 41% for Cufflinks and RSEM and 34% for eXpress. We, further, observe improved repeatability across laboratory sites with a relative increase in R2 between 8% and 44% and reduced standard deviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU directive on renewable energy sources enables EU Member States to import renewable electricity from non-EU countries and count these imports towards their renewable energy targets. This article investigates whether such cooperation can be beneficial for selected Western Balkan countries and help them to increase their domestic renewable electricity supply: could wind power exports to the EU from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia enable additional investments in domestic generation, without 'selling out' the exporter countries' best generation sites? Or would exports rather conflict with the Western Balkans countries' domestic efforts to reach their renewable energy targets and increase the domestic electricity supply? For this, a model was developed in Visual Basic to optimize, from the exporters' perspective, the optimal export level to trigger investments but maximize the wind power supply for domestic use. The analysis takes into account the wind potential, support and price levels in the EU and Western Balkans, investor requirements and financing conditions in the investigated countries. The article shows that cooperation offers a way both for EU Member States and some Western Balkan countries to expand renewable electricity supply and reach their renewable energy targets in a cost-effective way. Partial exports of wind power would allow Serbia, Albania and the FYR of Macedonia to reach their 2020 wind targets. This would not be possible under their existing support schemes or electricity prices. The results indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina lacks cost-efficient potentials and cannot achieve its wind target in the base case, with or without exports. Climate policy relevance The results show that wind power cooperation between the EU and Western Balkan countries may simultaneously increase the renewable electricity generation available for the domestic markets in the host countries and help EU Member States to achieve their renewable energy and decarbonization targets. Hence, wind power exports are a way for both the EU and the Western Balkans to provide more carbon-neutral electricity in a cost-effective manner and thus support the achievement of renewable energy and climate targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents information on climate negotiations, greenhouse gas emission and the new well-designed mechanisms for cost effectively reducing the emissions. It discusses the role of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It further discusses the existing framework, possible governance model for Sectoral Crediting Mechanism (SCM). It also discusses Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The barriers to linking greenhouse gas cap-and-trade schemes are assessed, based on an analysis of existing and emerging trading schemes, including those in the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the EU. The feasibility of different forms of linking and the time frames for their implementation are examined. In particular, the barriers to direct bilateral linking are considered. It was found that only a few direct bilateral links will be viable in the short term, due to the divergent policy priorities of different nations and regions, reflected in critical design features, such as cost-containment measures. However, in the short term, cap-and-trade markets will very likely be indirectly linked via unilateral links to the CDM or new crediting mechanisms, which may be adopted within a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. In order to ensure a harmonization of critical design elements in the mid to long term, early institutional cooperation may become necessary. Necessary policy steps and the appropriate institutional framework for such harmonization and, overtime, further integration of trading schemes are briefly delineated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantified the volume of free allowances that different national allocation plans proposed to allocate to existing and new installations, with specific reference to the power sector. Most countries continue to allocate based on historic emissions, contrary to hopes for improved allocation methods, with allocations to installations frequently based on 2005 emission data; this may strengthen the belief in the private sector that emissions in the coming years will influence their subsequent allowance allocation. Allocations to new installations provide high and frequently fuel-differentiated subsidies, risking significant distortions to investment choices. Thus, in addition to supplying a long market in aggregate, proposed allocation plans reveal continuing diverse problems, including perverse incentives. To ensure the effectiveness of the EU ETS in the future, the private sector will need to be shown credible evidence that free allowance allocation will be drastically reduced post-2012, or that these problems will be addressed in some other way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To accelerate the energy transition, the EU "Clean Energy for all Europeans" package aims to strengthen the involvement of end consumers in the energy market. To this end, together with so-called "active consumers" and provisions for individual and collective renewable energy self-consumption, two types of energy communities were introduced. The EU framework, however, leaves many details of the transposition process to the national level. The corresponding directives were supposed to be transposed by the end of December 2020 (recast Electricity Market Directive, defining active consumers and citizen energy communities) and by the end of June 2021 (Renewable Energy Directive, defining renewables self-consumption and renewable energy communities). In this paper, we critically discuss major developments of the transposition, including questions of the general distinction of the different concepts, governance and ownership, physical expansion, administrative barriers and the overall integration of energy communities into the energy system. The analysis builds on country case studies as well as on previous work by the authors on the status of the transposition process throughout the EU. The paper shows that the national approaches differ greatly and are at very different stages. While basic provisions are in place in most Member States to meet the fundamental EU requirements, the overall integration into the energy system and market is only partly addressed. This concerns, for instance, the analysis of system impacts of energy communities and measures that would allow and support energy system-friendly behaviour. In addition, several practical hurdles need to be overcome. These often relate to administrative requirements such as complex registration and licensing procedures, the need for the involvement of several institutions, or difficult procedures for access to relevant data. The paper concludes that discussed barriers will need to be carefully addressed if the high expectations for the role of energy communities are to be met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess opportunities the Clean Energy Package provides for Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs) and Plus Energy Districts (PEDs) regarding their economic optimization and market integration, possibly leading to new use cases and revenue streams. At the same time, insights into regulatory limitations at the national level in transposing the set of EU Clean Energy Package provisions are shown. The paper illustrates that the concepts of PEBs and PEDs are in principle compatible with the EU energy community concepts, as they relate to technical characteristics while energy communities provide a legal and regulatory framework for the organization and governance of a community, at the same time providing new regulatory space for specific activities and market integration. To realize new use cases, innovative ICT approaches are needed for a range of actors actively involved in creating and operating energy communities as presented in the paper. The paper discusses a range of different options to realize PEBs and PEDs as energy communities based on the H2020 EXCESS project. It concludes, however, that currently the transposition of the Clean Energy Package by the EU Member States is incomplete and limiting and as a consequence, in the short term, the full potential of PEBs and PEDs cannot be exploited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer multiple solutions to urban challenges simultaneously, but realising funding for NBS remains a challenge. When the concept of NBS for societal challenges was first defined by the EC in 2017, financing was recognised as one of the major challenges to its mainstreaming. The complexity of NBS finance has its origin in the multiple benefits/stakeholders involved, which obscures the argument for both public and private sector investment. Since 2017, subsequent waves of EU research- and innovation-funded projects have substantially contributed to the knowledge base of funding and business models for NBS, particularly in the urban context. Collaborating and sharing knowledge through an EU Task Force, this first set of EU projects laid important knowledge foundations, reviewing existing literature, and compiling empirical evidence of different financing approaches and the business models that underpinned them. The second set of EU innovation actions advanced this knowledge base, developing and testing new implementation models, business model tools, and approaches. This paper presents the findings of these projects from a business model perspective to improve our understanding of the value propositions of NBS to support their mainstreaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is spurring interest in renewable energy systems from time-varying sources (e.g., photovoltaics, wind) and these can require batteries to help load balancing. However, the batteries themselves add additional GHG emissions to the electricity system in all its life cycle phases. This article begins by investigating the GHG emissions for the manufacturing of two stationary lithium-ion batteries, comparing production in Europe, US and China. Next, we analyze how the installation and operation of these batteries change the GHG emissions of the electricity supply in two pilot sites. Life cycle assessment is used for GHG emissions calculation. The regional comparison on GHG emissions of battery manufacturing shows that primary aluminum, cathode paste and battery cell production are the principal components of the GHG emissions of battery manufacturing. Regional variations are linked mainly to high grid electricity demand and regional changes in the electricity mixes, resulting in base values of 77 kg CO2-eq/kWh to 153 kg CO2-eq/kWh battery capacity. The assessment of two pilot sites shows that the implementation of batteries can lead to GHG emission savings of up to 77%, if their operation enables an increase in renewable energy sources in the electricity system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for Bernhard Schlamadinger, one of the world's well-known and most highly respected land-use experts, is presented.

This paper introduces a method to analyse and explore consistency within policy mixes in order to support the policymaking cycle and applies it to energy and climate change policies in the United Kingdom (UK) biofuels policy context. The first part of the paper introduces a multi-level method to evaluate consistency within policy mixes implemented over a period of time. The first level explores consistency across policy design features in policy mixes. The second level evaluates how stakeholders, and their interactions with policy instruments and each other, can impact consistency within a given context. These interactions influence the implementation of policies and can lead to unintended outcomes that fail to meet the overarching goals. In the second part of the paper, we apply our method to the UK biofuels policy mix, to explore a sector that cuts across the policy areas of transportation, energy, land-use, air, and climate change. Our analysis demonstrates how, by overlooking complex interactions in the design and implementation of policies in the biofuels sector, policy mixes have conflicted with the development of a potential low-carbon technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]