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The majority of currently installed photovoltaic (PV) systems are based on mono- and polycrystalline silicon PV modules. Manufacturers of competing technologies often argue that due to the characteristics of their PV technologies, PV systems based on their modules are able to achieve higher annual energy yield, due to a smaller effect of temperature on module performance and/or a better performance at low light intensities. While these benefits have been confirmed in local studies many times, there is still limited insight as to the locations at which a particular technology actually performs best. In this study we have analysed the performance of a large set of PV modules, based on irradiance time series that were taken from satellite measurements. Using these data, and combining it with a PV performance model, we have made a geospatial analysis of the energy yield of different types of PV modules. We aim to make the energy yield of the investigated modules spatially explicit, allowing PV system installers to choose the best module type for every location investigated. Our results show that there is large geographical variety in the performance of PV modules, in terms of energy yield but also in terms of relative performance or performance ratio. While some technologies clearly exhibit a decrease in performance ratio at locations where they operate at higher temperatures, for some technologies this effect is much smaller. As a result of the variation in performance, the environmental footprint of PV modules also shows large geographical variations. However, even at low irradiance locations the environmental footprint of PV modules in general is much lower compared to that of fossil fuel based electricity generation.

The specifications of photovoltaic modules show performance under standard testing conditions (STC), but only limited information relating to performance at non-STC conditions. While performance is affected by irradiance, temperature, spectral composition of irradiance, angle-of-incidence of the irradiance and other parameters, specifications only partly give detail to consumers or retailers about the effect of irradiance and temperature. In this study, we characterise and analyse the performance of eight different, commercially available photovoltaic modules. We establish the effect of four different parameters on module performance: irradiance, temperature, spectral composition of irradiance (via the parameter average photon energy) and angle-of-incidence, by performing linear and nonlinear optimisation of physical or empirical models. Furthermore, we characterise the operating conditions and analyse the seasonal and annual development and contribution of the four parameters to energy losses or gains relative to STC operating conditions. We show a comprehensive way of presenting the deviation of performance from STC, combining the variation in operating conditions and the resulting variation in performance. Our results show that some effects on performance are attributable to the semiconductor material used in the modules (spectral composition and temperature), while especially angle-of-incidence effects seem more related to the type of glass used on as the front cover of the module. Variation in irradiance and module temperature generally affect performance the strongest, resulting in a performance effect ranging from + 2.8% to − 3.2% and − 0.5% to − 2.2%, respectively. The combined effect of all parameters results in an annual yield deviation ranging from + 1.2% to − 5.9%.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could be an interesting option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands. This study compares a mitigation strategy for the Dutch power sector that includes CCS to one without on several socio-economic indicators. In particular, we calculate incremental gross value added (GVA), employment and import dependency impacts of two such low-carbon power production portfolios for the Netherlands. We combine technology specific techno-economic bottom-up data with a macro-economic multi-regional Input-Output-Table containing high sectoral detail. For the total economy, we find the differences between these scenarios to be small. Still, gross value added, and employment are lower under the CCS-inclusive strategy, while import dependency is higher. For the power sector, the differences between the scenarios are, however, considerable. Furthermore, our analysis shows that also for other sectors the differences between the scenarios could be large. For instance, a CCS-exclusive strategy leads to considerably higher GVA and employment in domestic construction services, while the CCS-inclusive strategy comes with considerably higher GVA and employment for natural gas mining and related upstream sectors. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a potential key-technology to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as its use can lead to lower mitigation cost. However, research on other economic impacts of using CCS is scarce. In this paper, we look into economic upstream impacts of CCS use in terms of employment, Gross Value Added (GVA) and import dependency on the macro- and sector-level in Western Europe. We determine these impacts by a static comparison of two scenarios of power production with and without CCS (differences in energy efficiency investments between these scenarios were not accounted for). The two scenarios, both representing a stringent climate policy regime, were produced with the energy-system-simulation-model (TIMER) following the same emission profile until 2050. Data from the two scenarios were respectively implemented into a projected version of a global-multiregional IO-Model (EXIOBASE). Macro-level results suggest slightly higher gross employment, but lower Gross Value Added (GVA) (by 25%), and higher import dependency in the CCS-including scenario compared to the CCS-excluding scenario, given that biomass with CCS (BECCS) is available. Sector-level results show disproportionally higher differences between the scenarios in GVA and employment for some sectors compared to other sectors. Particularly, sectors providing fuels (here mostly bio-energy) have significantly higher GVA and employment in the CCS scenario. This study thus reveals interesting upstream economic effects, which can be linked to the technology choice. However, the exact quantitative results depend strongly on model assumptions. Results therefore need to be further explored in other models. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This study developed a method to assess the techno-economic performance and spatial footprint of CO2 capture infrastructure configurations in industrial zones. The method has been successfully applied to a cluster of sixteen industrial plants in the Dutch industrial Botlek area (7.1 MtCO2/y) for 2020–2030. The configurations differ inter alia regarding capture technology (post-, pre-, oxyfuel combustion) and location of capture components (centralized vs. plant site). Results indicate that oxyfuel combustion with centralized oxygen production and decentralized CO2 compression is the most cost effective and realistic configuration when applying CO2 capture to all industrial plants (61€/tCO2; 5.8 MtCO2/y avoided), mainly due to relatively low energy costs compared to post- and pre-combustion. However, oxyfuel combustion at plant level is economically preferable when capturing CO2 from only the three largest industrial plants. For post-combustion, a separated absorber-stripper configuration (73€/tCO2; 7.1 MtCO2/y avoided) is preferable from a cost perspective, due to economic scale effects of capture equipment. The optimal pre-combustion configuration shows a slightly less favorable performance (81€/tCO2; 4.4 MtCO2/y avoided). Whereas many industrial plants have insufficient space available for capture equipment, centralized/hybrid configurations show no insurmountable space issues. The deployment of the most favorable configurations is addressed in Part B.

Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) cells offer high efficiencies and several advantages in the production process compared to conventional crystalline silicon solar cells. We performed a life-cycle assessment to identify the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint, energy payback time (EPBT) and cumulative energy demand of four different SHJ solar cell designs. We analyse these environmental impacts for cell processing and complete systems for both current and prospective designs. On the basis of in-plane irradiation of 1700¿kWh/m2, results for current designs show that life-cycle GHG emissions could be 32 gCO2-eq/kWh for complete SHJ photovoltaic (PV) systems (module efficiencies of 18.4%), compared with 38 gCO2-eq/kWh for conventional monocrystalline silicon systems (module efficiency of 16.1%). The EPBT of all SHJ designs was found to be 1.5¿years, compared with 1.8¿years for the monocrystalline PV system. Cell processing contributes little (=6%) to the overall environmental footprint of SHJ PV systems. Among cell processing steps, vacuum based deposition contributes substantially to the overall results, with 55–80%. Atomic layer deposition of thin films was found to have a significantly lower environmental footprint compared to plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition and sputtering. Copper-based compared with silver-based metallization was shown to reduce the impact of this processing step by 74–84%. Increases in cell efficiency, use of thin silicon wafers and replacement of silver-based with copper-based metallization could result in life-cycle GHG emissions for systems to be reduced to 20 gCO2-eq/kWh for SHJ systems and 25 gCO2-eq/kWh for monocrystalline system, while EPBT could drop to 0.9 and 1.2¿years, respectively

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One of the challenges of the twenty-first century is the transition to a sustainable energy system. Road transport biofuels can play an important role in this energy transition. Indeed, biofuels have the largest global share as a mitigation measure in the road transport sector. In 2012, biofuels accounted for 3.4% of global road transport fuel demand (2.3%of total transport fuels). Biofuels are also considered as a promising strategy to decarbonize other transport sectors such as marine and aviation in the short-medium term. Nevertheless, biofuels are not cost competitive compared to fossil fuels and thus require government intervention to stimulate their production and consumption...

As one of the common goals of developing the ‘bio-economy (BE)’ is to reduce GHG emissions from fossil feedstocks, it is crucial to monitor the associated carbon stock change from land-use change (CSC-LUC). This thesis addressed the key knowledge gaps related to (i) tracking the biomass flows for the BE, (ii) measuring the impacts of additional demand on CSC-LUC, and (iii) assessing land availability for future biomass production. Firstly, taking the Netherlands as an example, the thesis showed that existing monitoring efforts can be combined to draw a more complete picture of the biomass flows for the BE, despite the need to overcome several methodological challenges e.g. inconsistency in data definitions. This clarified the consumption patterns in different end-markets in conjunction with the trends in cross-border trade. As the flows are complex, linking the additional demand from the expanding BE to global CSC-LUC can be complicated. By analysing 12 existing studies, the thesis found that using quantitative results from a single study for accounting purposes in policymaking can be misleading since the context can be very different. Instead, the relative roles of different drivers (e.g. logging vs oil palm) in local, regional and global perspectives, should be further examined. The thesis then demonstrated how a small change in the methodological setting will affect the quantitative results by developing a method to allocate historical CSC-LUC to agricultural expansions. Three key trends were found for 1995-2010: (i) agricultural land degradation and abandonment was found to be a major (albeit indirect) driver for CSC-LUC, (ii) CSC-LUC was spurred by the growth of cross-border trade, (iii) non-food use (excluding liquid biofuels) has emerged as a significant contributor of CSC-LUC in the 2000’s. These results show that improving land management and productivity with efficient use of under-utilised low carbon (ULC) land offers opportunities to close the demand gap while reducing the CSC-LUC impacts. Taking regencies in Kalimantan (Indonesia) as case studies, the thesis explored ULC land resources by analysing information from different monitoring domains such as land cover and land occupancy. It was found that to avoid over- or under-estimation, all information from these domains should be analysed together, supported with relevant literature and evidence from interviews. However, physical estimates cannot provide a complete picture of ‘real’ land availability without considering a broader range of socio-economic factors (e.g. labour availability). The thesis thus further studied the cases by addressing the factors from the different perspectives of various actors. It was concluded that mobilisation of ULC land, instead of focusing only on one crop or end-market, has to depart from analysing the specific conditions within individual regencies, especially considering the views of multiple land-use actors on different land-use options and business models. Conclusively, measuring the impacts of the expanding BE on both the consumption and production side is important, especially considering the different local context, to understand how the development of the BE can be done in a sustainable way. Questions on ‘how’ and ‘why’ are equally important to ‘what’ and ‘when’ for tailoring strategies to improve productivity for meeting additional demand from BE without compromising the environmental and socio-economic sustainability.

To make the transition towards a more sustainable energy supply, it is necessary that we drastically increase the share of renewable electricity generation. Solar photovoltaic energy is regarded as one of the prime options to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our electricity supply, and many different types of photovoltaics are being investigated to develop ever cheaper and more efficient photovoltaic devices. Silicon heterojunction technology combines the experience in both crystalline and thin film silicon photovoltaics, and offers highly efficient solar cells, although its market penetration is still very limited. As main patents describing this technology have expired, many research groups are presently investigating a variety of silicon heterojunction cell designs. In this thesis, a comprehensive assessment of silicon heterojunction technology is performed, taking into account the environmental footprint and economics of different silicon heterojunction solar cell designs and complete photovoltaic systems based on them, as well as an analysis of the performance of commercial solar modules, including silicon heterojunction modules, is given. Furthermore, the development of the complete photovoltaic industry is analysed to establish the net contribution of solar energy in terms of energy generation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. A life cycle inventory was built, that details all the material and energy flows in and out of the production chains of the silicon heterojunction designs. The results indicate that current silicon heterojunction technology has lower environmental impact compared to crystalline silicon, but similar or higher costs. Prospective silicon heterojunction designs are able to significantly decrease environmental impact and production cost, relatively more than the prospective crystalline silicon reference design that is investigated here. In order for silicon heterojunction technology to compete with alternative photovoltaic technologies, the outdoor performance should be comparable with or better than these alternatives. Under practical operating conditions, silicon heterojunction photovoltaic modules show very similar performance compared to both mono- and polycrystalline PV modules, both in detailed measurements conducted at a single North-Western European location as well as based on performance modelling for a broad geographical range. The smaller effect of temperature on the performance of silicon heterojunction can benefit this technology compared to crystalline silicon, although other parameters also significantly affect module performance. Because of the significant variation of performance of photovoltaics, the environmental impact and costs associated with photovoltaic electricity show strong variation over large geographical ranges. The continued and fast growth of the photovoltaic industry has raised concerns that it could result in the creation of an energy sink or a net greenhouse gas emission instead of a positive energy balance and net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. There has been a strong decrease over time of the environmental impact of photovoltaics, and as a result, it is likely that a break even has already been achieved between the cumulative energy investments made and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions released to produce photovoltaics, and the cumulative energy production and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

To achieve the emission mitigation and de-carbonization goals future aviation sector requires alternative sustainable fuels. Synthetic paraffinic kerosene, generated by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, is certified as a drop-in jet fuel up to 50 %. Potential production routes are via conversion of biomass (Biomass-to-Liquid, BTL), the combination of renewable power and biomass (Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquid, PBTL) and the conversion of CO2 with hydrogen to fuels (Power-to-Liquid, PTL). Even if the BTL route enables the lowest net production costs, it has some drawbacks compared to the alternatives. The fuel yield of the BTL concepts can be increased by a factor of about 3 by the PBTL processes. The highest overall efficiency is found for the PTL (48.1 %) followed by PBTL (45.0 %) and last BTL (29.8 %). For BTL only 27 % of the introduced carbon can be converted into fuels. The total investment costs are highest for BTL, followed by PBTL and PTL. The net production costs are in the reverse order. Low electricity prices and high capacities are advantageous for PBTL, while high electricity prices favor BTL-concept., Proceedings of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-9 June 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 1074-1078

The emission mitigation and decarbonization of the aviation sector requires alternative sustainable fuels. To assess and compare the techno-economic performance of different fuel production pathways a standardized evaluation methodology is required. The developed methodology comprises six steps including detailed process simulation, heat and material integration and cost analysis. The process simulation and economic analysis is coupled and an optimization towards cost minimization is conducted. The methodology was applied in a case study of the Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquid concept (PBTL). An overall efficiency of .XTL = 45.0 % was found and the carbon conversion of carbon from biomass into fuels is 97.7 %. The cost analysis reveals total investment costs of 751 M€ (315,100 €/bpd) and net production costs of 2.97 €/kg. The costs for the electrolyzer and the gasifier represent the largest shares of the total capital costs. The net production costs are dominated by the electricity costs., Proceedings of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-9 June 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 1262-1266