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Due to high electricity prices and possible shortages of gas and other energy commodities, various fluctuations in electricity generation will need to be regulated. Given the increasing expansion of wind power plants in Europe and worldwide. It is necessary and essential to put power regulation into practice, as mandated by regulation 2016/631 EU. A significant power balance problem may arise on the grid, which may lead to cyclical and recurring blackouts in the future. The motivation for this paper is to raise awareness of the controllability of wind turbines and to highlight the gentle pace of research in this area for pitch angle control. Therefore, the chief idea of the paper is to develop a proposal for wind power plant power control by changing the rotor blade rotation, following previous research in this area, and determining the shortcomings and possibilities. The paper provides a numerical method for controlling the power output of a wind power plant, for which an algorithm has been proposed. This control is intended to provide a framework for the design and implementation of a wind power plant control program. Coordination between the multiple sources will fulfil a leading role in smooth power management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into an econometric analysis to uncover the differences between Nordic European Countries - NEC (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden) and South-East European Countries - SEEC (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary). The focus is on exploring the interplay among electricity generation from Renewable Energy Sources (RES), CO 2 emissions, urban population and GDP per capita in these two European regions. The study employs cross-sectional dependence, first and second-generation panel unit root tests, Pedroni panel and Westerlund panel cointegration tests, ARDL, Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test to establish the relation among variables. The findings reveal that in both regions, CO 2 emissions are significantly influenced by GDP per capita, urbanization and RES generation. Furthermore, urbanization plays an important role. When examining causality in SEEC, three bidirectional relationships are observed: urbanization and CO 2 , urbanization and GDP, urbanization and generation from RES, and two unidirectional causalities: CO 2 and GDP, generation from RES and CO 2. In contrast, for the NEC, there are two bidirectional causalities: urbanization and CO 2 , urbanization and generation from RES, and two unidirectional causalities: GDP and CO 2 , generation from RES and CO 2. These results highlight the nuanced and varied nature of environmental and economic dynamics across various European regions. • Relationship between CO 2 emissions, GDP per capita and electricity production from RES. • Investigating two groups of EU countries located in the North and SE Europe. • Estimations with Fully Modified and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares. • Causality and cointegration between variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a set of policy recommendations for the market design of a future European electricity system characterized by a dominant share of renewable energy supply (RES), in line with the stated targets of European governments. We discuss the market failures that need to be addressed to accommodate RES in liberalized electricity markets, review the evolution of the EU's RES policy mechanisms, and summarize the key market impacts of variable RES to date. We then set out economic principles for wholesale market design and use these to develop our policy recommendations. Our analysis covers the value of interconnection and market integration, electricity storage, the design of RES support mechanisms, distributed generation and network tariffs, the pricing of electricity and flexibility as well as long-term contracting and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent decades, European Union countries have committed to increasing their electricity production from renewable energy sources (RESs). Wind energy plays a significant role in a sustainable future. This paper presents a political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental analysis. Although these countries have made many improvements in their legal frameworks aiming to attract investors and boost the RE sector, there are still challenges. The UK focuses on offshore wind energy, adjusts the economic strategy and changes the legislation context. Germany has the healthiest economic conditions, as it keeps following its initiative to design a new programme for an energy transition from conventional to RESs with emphasis on the onshore. Greece has only a few installations and much room for development but needs to make further changes in the legislation and economy so as to attract more investors in the long term. The purpose of this research is to analyse, highlight and discuss vital aspects of these countries as well as the European environment, with reference to their current wind energy activities. Ultimately, it attempts to give a wider perspective and to serve as a guide for future studies on the wind energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Price Coupling of Regions incorporates complex order options inherited from the joining day-ahead power exchanges. The option called ‘Minimum Income Orders’ represents a major burden to price formation and compromises transparency and optimality. An analysis of market data calls into question the use and purpose of this option. Simplifying the day-ahead market clearing is pivotal to the advancement of a European electricity target model centered on renewable energy and active consumer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test if policy support for renewable electricity have been effective in promoting renewables in the five largest European countries in the period 2000–2010. We collect data on the exact amount of monetary incentives and the average tariffs granted. The econometric analysis reveals a positive correlation between subsidies and the production of incentivized energy, as well as the installed capacity. We find that a 1% (1c€) increase in the incentive (tariff) leads to an increase in renewable generation of 0.4–1% (18–26%). Feed-in tariffs appear to outperform tradable green certificates. Overall, the analysis shows that these policies have been effective in promoting renewable energy, both in the short and in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incentivizing development and deployment of renewable energy sources (RES), but also other low carbon technologies (LCT), has been a successful way of promoting new technologies by creating a feasible investment case and making them competitive with traditional energy sources. Although different incentive mechanisms exist, feed-in tariffs have shown to be the best model for accelerating LCT development guaranteeing producers preferential prices for the produced electricity over a period of time and enabling them access to the power network to sell/inject produced electricity. Due to these benefits, feed-in tariff models are the most common model for stimulating RES integration in southeast Europe. The paper reviews the current state of preferential tariffs for RES in countries of southeast Europe. While some countries already have significant installed RES capacity, others are still in the planning stage. The review shows that the amount of installed capacity of a specific technology has a strong impact on the support for the future projects for same technology. This comprehensive review of legislative development supporting RES, as well as technologies preferred in different countries of the region, is supported with feasibility assessment of investing in RES using the example of two different technology projects, wind and photovoltaic, analysing the impact of the current tariffs on the return on investment for each country of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High shares of intermittent renewable power generation in a European electricity system will require flexible backup power generation on the dominant diurnal, synoptic, and seasonal weather timescales. The same three timescales are already covered by today’s dispatchable electricity generation facilities, which are able to follow the typical load variations on the intra-day, intra-week, and seasonal timescales. This work aims to quantify the changing demand for those three backup flexibility classes in emerging large-scale electricity systems, as they transform from low to high shares of variable renewable power generation. A weather-driven modelling is used, which aggregates eight years of wind and solar power generation data as well as load data over Germany and Europe, and splits the backup system required to cover the residual load into three flexibility classes distinguished by their respective maximum rates of change of power output. This modelling shows that the slowly flexible backup system is dominant at low renewable shares, but its optimized capacity decreases and drops close to zero once the average renewable power generation exceeds 50% of the mean load. The medium flexible backup capacities increase for modest renewable shares, peak at around a 40% renewable share, and then continuously decrease to almost zero once the average renewable power generation becomes larger than 100% of the mean load. The dispatch capacity of the highly flexible backup system becomes dominant for renewable shares beyond 50%, and reach their maximum around a 70% renewable share. For renewable shares above 70% the highly flexible backup capacity in Germany remains at its maximum, whereas it decreases again for Europe. This indicates that for highly renewable large-scale electricity systems the total required backup capacity can only be reduced if countries share their excess generation and backup power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of wind energy entering the European electricity transmission system is expected to increase in next decades. Indeed, Europe is on the path towards a deep transformation of its energy system, triggered in part by Directive 2009/28/EC (also known as the Renewable Energy Directive), in which wind energy will play an important role. Europe is large enough to be impacted by multiple weather systems at any one time and as a consequence, absolute values and time patterns of wind power generation are different in each European country because of these non-homogeneous meteorological conditions. A future pan-European power transmission grid aiming to dispatch electricity production throughout the continent will thus have to face the challenge of balancing in real time differently intermittent and strongly inhomogeneous resources. In this study, based on the wind fields provided at daily resolution for the period 1961–2050 by 12 regional climate models involved in the ENSEMBLES climate modelling intercomparison project, we have evaluated absolute national and European wind power production and its expected changes following the evolution of climate in Europe. Moreover, we have suggested a methodology to investigate in a quantitative way the complementarity among wind power patterns in different countries. Results show that the evolution of climate in Europe as projected by the ENSEMBLES participants, is not expected to have major impact on absolute wind energy production. Furthermore, the complementarity of wind energy patterns in different countries can be exploited by better integration of trans-boundary power exchange in Europe. For this reason, results are also discussed in the light of the design and dimensioning of the European electricity transmission system, with a special emphasis on the cross-border interconnections issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of thermal and electrical energy is related to the emission of greenhouse gases, which are believed to cause climatic changes. The activities of the international community show an increase of ecological awareness. In the Central European countries the share of renewable energy in overall energy production is relatively small. One sector where some progress can be made is agriculture. This paper presents simulation results of CO 2 reduction potential by replacing conventional heating system for a poultry house with a hybrid solar–wind system. Heat requirement for 2400 birds was calculated. Simple models for solar collector, wind turbine and heat storage tank are presented. The system is modelled in a Matlab/Simulink environment and various system configurations are analysed for climatic conditions typical for Central Europe. The solar collector area was varied between 0 and 80 m 2 , wind turbine diameter was varied in the range of 0–20 m and 1 to 4 heat storage tanks. Apart from percentage of CO 2 emission reduction two other indicators are introduced: renewable energy utilisation ratio and weighted CO 2 emission reduction — renewable energy utilisation coefficient. The results show that larger systems provide higher CO 2 reduction but the energy utilisation ratio decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of demand response (DR) technologies and increasing electricity demand, dynamic pricing has been a popular topic in many countries. This paper evaluates various dynamic pricing programs in the U.S. and Europe, and provides insights into various aspects including risks and rewards, enabling technologies, lower-income groups and customer types surrounding programs such as Time-of-Use (TOU), Critical Peak Pricing (CPP), Peak Time Rebates (PTR) and Real Time Pricing (RTP). We conclude this paper with three main findings: (1) policy coordination in promoting dynamic pricing programs between federal and state regulatory agencies is very critical; (2) customer engagement is very important and can be enhanced via more accessible educational programs and policy adjustments; and (3) more investment in related R&D is required to construct a commonly accepted methodology for measuring the effectiveness of dynamic pricing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity generation is becoming increasingly flexible in Europe these days. Due to the integration of new renewable energy sources like wind and photovoltaic, other conventional resources, such as hydropower, operate within a brought range around their best efficiency point, thus leading to higher dynamical loads at the water-bearing parts, especially at the runner and the guide vanes (background). By scrutinizing the literature of the past years, one could summarize the outcome in that way, that research projects focused either on model measurements with higher visual accessibility or, less often, on prototype measurements in existing power plants. Today prototype measurements are performed, if possible, to eliminate scaling effects. Moreover, increasing computing power allows prototype simulations to be carried out within a reasonable time. At the acknowledged research projects, prototype and model measurements and numerical simulations have been performed to identify the main gaps in Francis turbines' lifetime assessment (methods). One special outcome of these investigations was the impracticality of numerical simulations and calculation time, respectively, of start and stop events. Therefore, a prototype measurement with focus at this operating point should be performed to provide more data and an insight into the unit's behavior. The future goal is a comprehensive machine unit lifetime assessment of the water-bearing parts in a Francis turbine machine set (results). This complex task needs several steps, beginning from measurements through simulations towards data processing. A particular challenge is posed, when the assessment methods are applied to old machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to address the EU policy for achieving low carbon economy by assessing energy technologies in electricity and road transport sector based on costs and impact on climate change and to indicate the most competitive electricity and transport technologies taking into account EU policy targets in GHG emission reduction, utilization of renewable and energy efficiency improvements. The main tasks of the paper are: to develop the multi-criteria framework for comparative assessment of energy technologies by applying MCDM methods for the electricity generation and transport technologies assessment. The interval TOPSIS method is employed in order to tackle the uncertain criteria. The assessment framework allows the comparison of electricity generation technologies and road transport technologies in terms of their GHG emission reduction and economic impacts and facilitates decision making process in energy sector seeking to implement EU energy policies. The main indicators selected for technologies assessment are: private costs and life cycle GHG emissions. The ranking of energy technologies based on private costs and GHG emissions allowed prioritizing these technologies taking into account the lowest GHG emission reduction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climate protection targets for mid-century imply a need to scale up European renewable power production to a level that may exceed the available land area within Europe''s borders. One attractive solution, from a cost and feasibility perspective, is the development of large-scale concentrating solar power plants in North Africa and the Middle East. However, these developments are seen by many people as risky, in terms of both European energy security, and in terms of the risks faced by project developers. In this paper, we focus on the latter of theses issues. First, we examine the risks that project developers are most concerned about, and identify these as being associated not with terrorism and rogue state behavior, but rather with corruption and inefficient and unpredictable bureaucracies. Second, we identify a range of policy approaches that can reduce these risks, either by mitigating their consequences, or by seeking to eliminate their underlying causes. Third, we investigate the financial benefits of taking such steps to reduce or eliminate investment risks. We find the potential savings to European electricity consumers to exceed €200 billion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Renewable energy use is growing at a much faster pace than the rest of the economy in Europe and world-wide. This and the dramatic oil price increases in 2005 have lead to a remarkable re-evaluation of the renewable energy sector by politics and financing institutions. Despite the fact that there are still discrepancies between the European Union and the USA how to deal with climate change, renewable energies will play an important role for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the world wide introduction of tradable green certificates. Apart from the electricity sector, renewable energy sources for the generation of heat and the use of environmental friendly bio-fuels for the transport sector will become more and more important in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper the relevant legislation for the geothermal energy in the European countries and Serbia is reviewed. There is a variety of the incentives for the geothermal production which are well known throughout the European Union. The governmental policies for the support of the geothermal development have so far focused on the power generation only. It is necessary to make serious efforts in order to harmonize the legislation and to simplify the procedures of establishing and implementing the policies for boosting the direct use of the geothermal energy. The Law on Energy of the Republic of Serbia which was adopted by the Parliament and the Energy Development Strategy of the Republic of Serbia until 2015 have defined the privileged power producers, but only by passing the Regulation on the incentive measures for the production of electricity using the renewable energy sources combined with the production of electricity and the thermal energy, which came into force on January 1st 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The renewable power generation aggregated across Europe exhibits strong seasonal behaviors. Wind power generation is much stronger in winter than in summer. The opposite is true for solar power generation. In a future Europe with a very high share of renewable power generation those two opposite behaviors are able to counterbalance each other to a certain extent to follow the seasonal load curve. The best point of counterbalancing represents the seasonal optimal mix between wind and solar power generation. It leads to a pronounced minimum in required stored energy. For a 100% renewable Europe the seasonal optimal mix becomes 55% wind and 45% solar power generation. For less than 100% renewable scenarios the fraction of wind power generation increases and that of solar power generation decreases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The 2001/77/CE European Commission Directive sets the target of 22% of gross electricity generation from renewables for the Europe, by 2010. In a scenario of large scale penetration of renewable production from wind and other intermittent resources, it is fundamental that the electric system has appropriate means to compensate the effects of the variability and randomness of the wind, solar and hydro power availability. The paper proposes a novel multi-objective method to optimize the mix of the renewable system maximizing its contribution to the peak load, while minimizing the combined intermittence, at a minimum cost. In such model the contribution of the large-scale demand-side management and demand response technologies are also considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: If Europe is serious about reaching its target to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C, it must strive for a 100% renewable electricity system by 2050. The SuperSmart Grid approach combines what is often perceived as two exclusive alternatives: wide area power generation and decentralised power generation. We argue that by combining these, in fact, complementary measures, it is possible to address the crucial issue of renewable generation—fluctuating supply—in a comprehensive as well as in a technologically and economically viable manner. Thus, the SuperSmart Grid simultaneously can contribute to energy security, climate security, social security, and national security. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

WHAT''S THE BEST PLACE FOR A WIND FARM? NOT JUST ON ANY OLD HILLSIDE OR “SOMEWHERE OFFSHORE”. THE CONCEPT OF LOCATION INTELLIGENCE IS PLAYING A GROWING ROLE IN THE PLANNING, DESIGN AND SITING OF EUROPEAN WIND FARMS, SAYS JUSTIN SAUNDERS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The European electricity policy is intended to increase market competitiveness and liberalisation. The European climate policy is directed toward substantial reductions in greenhouse-gas emission and a significant increase in the use of renewable energy for electricity production. Both policies affect European utilities considerably. As a consequence, only those utilities that can produce electricity with cost-efficient and environment-friendly technologies will gain a comparative market advantage. The author investigates the impacts of the European energy and climate policy initiatives on the electricity market. It emerges that emissions trading leads to higher electricity prices and triggers a substitution process—from the use of coal to the use of gas and renewable technologies. Both policies have complementary effects, but only because the electricity market is not yet fully Competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role European law, namely the EC Treaty, the Renewables Directive and the Electricity Directive, assumes in the drive for more investment into electricity generation using renewable energy resources. The author outlines the legal framework and focuses on a discussion of recompense support schemes and the tenure of current national schemes in the light of market liberalisation, non-discrimination, inter-fuel competition and integration under the EC Treaty and said EC secondary legislation. In the light of the internal energy market's developments as well as other environmentally focused European initiatives such as emissions trading and energy taxation, the article concludes on the role European law may assume in the future. The article also highlights legal developments in Europe that investors are advised to keep an eye on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy sector provides fuel for much of everyday life, particularly economically and socially. Fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, a well-functioning and resilient energy sector is vital for maintaining the operation of critical infrastructures, including, most importantly, the health sector, and timely economic recovery. Notwithstanding its importance in everyday life and crises, the energy sector itself is currently in a complex and far-reaching transformation to combat climate change whilst supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and society, mainly through the development of variable renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar photovoltaics. This paper highlights the need for energy resilience as countries face the triple challenge of the COVID-19 health crisis, the consequent economic crisis, and the climate crisis. Focusing on Europe, it is advanced here that with the ability to balance fluctuating electricity generation and demand, flexibility allows the energy sector to utilise low-carbon RES reliably, ensuring a more resilient and sustainable energy future. This paper derives five urgent policy recommendations for Europe that address possible impacts of COVID-19 on the economic and societal prerequisites for flexibility in energy systems. • Considers the COVID-19 pandemic as an instigator for change. • Highlights the importance of flexibility for resilient energy systems. • Derives five policy recommendations concerning flexibility in energy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration of variable renewables such as solar and wind has grown at an unprecedented pace in Europe over the past two decades. As the share of solar and wind rises, it becomes increasingly important for long-term energy system models to adequately represent their short-term variability. This paper uses a long-term TIMES model of the European power and district heat sectors towards 2050 to explore how stochastic modelling of short-term solar and wind variability as well as different temporal resolutions influence the model performance. Using a stochastic model with 48 time-slices as benchmark, the results show that deterministic models with low temporal resolution give a 15–20% underestimation of annual costs, an overestimation of the contribution of variable renewables (13–15% of total electricity generation) and a lack of system flexibility. The results of the deterministic models converge towards the stochastic solution when the temporal resolution is increased, but even with 2016 time-slices, the need for flexibility is underestimated. In addition, the deterministic model with 2016 time-slices takes 30 times longer to solve than the stochastic model with 48 time-slices. Based on these findings, a stochastic approach is recommended for long-term studies of energy systems with large shares of variable renewable energy sources. • Assessment of short-term solar and wind variability in long-term energy models. • Investigation of the impact of temporal resolution on model performance. • Comparison of deterministic and stochastic modelling approaches. • Coarse deterministic models underestimate costs, emissions and flexibility needs. • Stochastic model preferred over deterministic models with much higher resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar power production in Europe has raised from about 130 MW to 110 GW of installed capacity (corresponding to 90 GWh to 120 TWh in annual electricity generation) during the present century. Together with wind power, it constitutes the largest growth within renewable energy sources in the last decades. At present however, clear signs of saturation can be observed in the leading areas of solar power in Europe. Here, the development of solar power in Europe is analysed and, for the three leading countries (Germany, Italy, Spain) a logistic growth path at the national level and a proportionality between saturation level of the growth curve of each country and its gross domestic product (GDP) is found. The sum of the next three countries (France, UK, Belgium) is well described by a logistic path with a time offset relative to the first group of three, and the sum of the two logistic paths, representing in total about 85% of European solar power production, describes the growth pattern in the corresponding area very well. Based on this, an estimate of a future saturation level for solar power in Europe is obtained by extrapolation. Finally, a model based on logistic growth patterns and learning curves that links solar power production data to investment data, is proposed. The proposed model is validated and calibrated on historical European data and extrapolated into the future. In a future scenario where European investments continue to decrease, a saturation level that is fully in line with our GDP based 200 TWh/y estimate is found and the application of the findings is discussed in a global context. • Solar power production in the leading European areas show clear signs of saturation. • Proportionality between national saturation levels and gross domestic products is observed. • A model linking investment and solar power production is proposed and validated. • With current investment trends, solar power is not likely to fill the foreseen role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve a high renewable share in the electricity system, a significant expansion of cross-border exchange capacities is planned. Historically, the actual expansion of interconnector capacities has significantly lagged behind the planned expansion. This study examines the impact that such continued delays would have when compared to a strong interconnector expansion in an ambitious energy transition scenario. For this purpose, scenarios for the years 2030, 2040, and 2050 are examined using the electricity market model PowerFlex EU. The analysis reveals that both CO2 emissions and variable costs of electricity generation increase if interconnector expansion is delayed. This effect is most significant in the scenario year 2050, where lower connectivity leads roughly to a doubling of both CO2 emissions and variable costs of electricity generation. This increase results from a lower level of European electricity trading, a curtailment of electricity from a renewable energy source (RES-E), and a corresponding higher level of conventional electricity generation. Most notably, in Southern and Central Europe, less interconnection leads to higher use of natural gas power plants since less renewable electricity from Northern Europe can be integrated into the European grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the construction of solar power plant in North Africa, called Desertec, which is part of a multinational effort to supply North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe with solar power for electricity production. Topics include a brief historical overview of the project's growth, Desertec's use of concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, which uses reflectors of various shapes and configurations to produce heat for electric power production, and the use of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission to move the power from Africa to Europe.

The article reports on the proposed green-energy idea to network renewable energies across the European region. The cornerstone of the plan developed by DESERTEC group involves the solar thermal power plants of Sahara Desert, then transmitting the electricity through massive electricity grids in which concentrating solar power plant in Middle East and North Africa to meet the region's projected energy needs. According to the author, the idea is ambitious for it requires around 1,000 100-megawatt power plants, using mirrors to concentrate energy from the sun's rays. The group asks parliamentarians to set up a €10 billion fund to finance the development of solar thermal plants over 2012 and to establish a political framework for the idea.