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On the roadmap to reach the climate targets, Europe is committed to increase offshore wind power generation substantially from today towards 2050. This raises the question, what infrastructure layout efficiently integrates offshore wind power into the transmission grid. It is commonly addressed via scenario based optimisation studies to benchmark arbitrarily defined grid topology layouts such as radial connections of wind farms to shore against multi terminal offshore hubs or hybrid interconnectors. This paper proposes a new workflow to improve the design and calibration of topology scenarios for offshore grid studies with help of an automated process in a geographical information system. Against the backdrop of the recently adopted maritime spatial plans by EU member states, a high-resolution and large scale search graph of the future offshore grid is created with a multi-criteria analysis. Complexity reduction techniques are proposed to simplify this graph for subsequent investment optimisation studies. It is found that respecting the geographic reality of the heavily managed sea space not only reduces uncertainty for future offshore projects for more accurate cost estimates and cable trajectories. The consideration of designation areas in the sea also consolidates future grid planning options into common paths of transmission which facilitates the identification of relevant scenarios for analysis. It can be shown, that the commonly chosen benchmark of an "all radial" connection of wind farms to shore is a questionable choice to which an alternative is provided. The strategic relevance of the existence of spatial planning and access to high-resolution data for an improved grid development is demonstrated at the example of Baltic and North Sea. • Consolidation of maritime spatial planning data for offshore grid research • GIS based identification of investment candidates for offshore transmission infrastructure • Multi-criteria analysis for a search graph setup for subsequent investment optimisation studies • Demonstration of methodology at Baltic and North Sea [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of fundamental modelling approaches exist using different competition concepts with and without strategic behaviour to derive electricity prices. To investigate the quality and practicability of these different approaches in energy economics, a perfect competition model, a Cournot model and a Bilevel model are introduced and applied to different situations in the German electricity market. The three electricity market approaches are analysed with respect to their ability to represent electricity prices and the possibility of market power abuse. Market prices are taken as a benchmark for model validity. As a result, the perfect competition model fits best to today's market situation in most hours of the year. The Bilevel approach explains prices in high load hours sometimes better than the competition model. But complexity and calculation time increase disproportionately. In addition to the analysis of model quality, we use three scenarios to quantify how a high renewable feed-in influences the ability to abuse market power. Results show that the ability to address market power strongly depends on the amount of installed capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

China's large-scale inter-provincial population migration has a vast impact on social changes, and significantly altered the energy consumption demand of various provinces, and further affected the spatial distribution of carbon emissions. Nevertheless, less attention has been paid to the impact of population migration on carbon emissions. To make up for the niche, this paper develops an innovative framework by integrating a geographically weighted regression model, a population migration matrix, and an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model to assess the impact quantitatively based on factual and counterfactual scenarios. The results show that the carbon emissions increased by 78.16 million tonnes (Mt) in 2017 due to population migration, of which direct carbon emissions increased by 6.91 Mt. and indirect carbon emissions increased by 71.25 Mt. It must be emphasized that population migration increases indirect carbon emissions driven by urban consumption and investment in the provinces with net in-migrants. But these provinces transfer more carbon emissions to the regions with net out-migrants, which implies that population migration exacerbates carbon emissions inequality. This especially increases the carbon emission reduction barrier of provinces with net out-migrants. Overall, these empirical discoveries shed light on making regionally coordinated carbon reduction policies. • Integrated an innovative framework for assessing the impact of population migration on carbon emissions. • The impact of population migration on carbon emissions is assessed from the perspective of industrial linkages. • Population migration exacerbates carbon emissions inequality. • Population migration exacerbates carbon emission reduction barrier of provinces with net out-migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Egypt's power system is facing major changes. Rising demand, scarcity of fossil resources and the falling capital costs of solar and wind energy technologies pose the potential to fundamentally remake the national power fleet. Against this backdrop, the paper at hand investigates potential pathways of the domestic power system with a particular focus on regional deployment and associated impacts on the transmission network. To this end, the open-source modelling framework OSeMOSYS was adapted and deployed. The analysis evaluates renewable energy potentials for 320 sites across Egypt in eight different sub-regions. The study concludes that wind and PV installations prove to be cost-competitive and capable of shouldering a large share of projected demand growth, while their regional deployment should take required grid investments into consideration. The results also indicate that a restrained expansion of renewable energy technologies targeted by the government proves to be more costly than a more aggressive deployment pathway. • Cost-optimal future development of the Egyptian power plant fleet. • Inclusion of renewable potentials for 320 sites across Egypt. • Regional implications for the domestic transmission network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberalisation, climate policy and promotion of renewable energy are challenges to players of the electricity sector in many countries. Policy makers have to consider issues like market power, bounded rationality of players and the appearance of fluctuating energy sources in order to provide adequate legislation. Furthermore the interactions between markets and environmental policy instruments become an issue of increasing importance. A promising approach for the scientific analysis of these developments is the field of agent-based simulation. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of the current work applying this methodology to the analysis of electricity markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defossilization of industry has far-reaching implications regarding the future demand for hydrogen and other forms of energy. This paper presents and applies a fundamental bottom-up model that relies on techno-economic data of industrial production processes. Its aim is to identify, across a range of scenarios, the most cost-effective low-carbon options considering a variety of production systems. Subsequently, it derives the hydrogen and electricity demand that would result from the implementation of these least-cost low-carbon options in process industries in Germany. Aligning with the German government's target year for achieving climate neutrality, this study's reference year is 2045. The primary contribution lies in analyzing which hydrogen-based and direct electrification solutions would be cost-effective for a range of energy price levels under climate-neutral industrial production and what the resulting hydrogen and electricity demand would be. To this end, the methodology of this paper comprises the following steps: selection of the relevant industries (I), definition of conventional reference production systems and their low-carbon options (II), investigation and processing of the techno-economic data of the standardized production systems (III), establishment of a scenario framework (IV), determination of the least-cost low-carbon solution of a conventional reference production system under the scenario assumptions made (V), and estimation of the resulting hydrogen and electricity demand (VI). According to the results, the expected industrial hydrogen consumption in 2045 ranges from 265 TWh for higher hydrogen prices in or above the range of onshore wind-based green hydrogen supply costs, to up to 473 TWh for very low hydrogen prices corresponding to typical blue hydrogen production costs. Meanwhile, the direct electricity consumption of the process industries in the results ranges from 147 TWh for these rather low hydrogen prices to 338 TWh for the higher hydrogen prices in the region of or above the hydrogen supply costs from the electrolysis of energy from an onshore wind farm. Most of the break-even hydrogen prices that are relevant to the choice of low-carbon options are in the range of the benchmark purchase costs for blue hydrogen and green hydrogen produced from offshore wind power, which span between €40 per MWh and €97 per MWh. [Display omitted] • Derivation of the future hydrogen and power demand of the process industry in Germany. • Bottom-up, process-level model to find the least-cost low-carbon production method. • Reference year is 2045, and the achievement of climate-neutral production is assumed. • Model determines the hydrogen and power demand under varying hydrogen prices. • Expected hydrogen use between 265 TWh and 473 TWh, depending on scenario assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Virtual Special Issue collects the results of six research projects conducted under the umbrella of the MODEX network. MODEX stands for Model Experiments and refers to the combination of qualitative and quantitative model comparisons, the latter based on a harmonized model application. While all projects focused on the comparison of energy system models, the experiments covered a broad range of different areas. Thus, the experiments address different model types, such as vehicle diffusion models, power system models, distribution grid models, and transmission grid models, but also different thematic scopes, such as policy instruments, decentralized flexibility, and sector coupling. In total, the projects involved 40 models. The experiments were based on a harmonization of models and data, which was realized to the degree possible and useful in the respective project context. Complementary to the harmonized model application, the methods and tools for the systematic comparison of energy system models were further developed within the MODEX projects. The results of the MODEX projects significantly expand the spectrum of systematic comparisons of energy system models. The added value compared to previous model experiments consists particularly in the profound characterization of the models involved, the consistent linking of model differences with outcome differences, and the transparent description of appropriate methods and challenges of comparing energy system models. Due to a high degree of transparency, the project findings can be used directly by developers and users of other models. • MODEX is a milestone for structured model experiments of energy system models. • Model experiments enhance methodological knowledge of models and their comparison. • Model understanding and data harmonization are key challenges in model experiments. • Despite some similarities all models examined have dedicated strengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses the market penetration of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) in Germany from the perspectives of different stakeholders. There are several economic studies and models describing the introduction of hydrogen-powered vehicles, but most of them focus on only one segment of the car market. Most studies analyse the impacts of FCVs on the automotive industry or the demand for FCVs separately, while others look at the required hydrogen infrastructure, but none of these analyses examines the car market as a whole. The analysis takes into account the actions of the whole market (consumers, automotive manufacturers, filling station owners and policymakers) and their interactions. According to the results of the System Dynamics model the combination of tax-free hydrogen fuel, subsidies on FCVs and sufficient hydrogen infrastructure supply will lead to quick market penetration of FCVs. The analysis clearly shows that the government is recommended to support the installation of a sufficient number of hydrogen filling pumps at the beginning of the market introduction (e.g. 500 filling stations). Due to the model results, approximately 4.8 billion Euros are needed to reach a successful market penetration of FCVs. Thereby about one-third of all passenger cars will be driven with hydrogen in 2040 and even two-third in 2050. Primarily subsidies and tax allowances for the vehicles are necessary to reduce the price of FCVs to the average level of modern diesel cars; otherwise consumers'' acceptance of FCVs will be very low. A rapid introduction of FCVs based on these policies is necessary in order to limit the cumulative subsidies for the vehicles and the fuel-tax deficit. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]