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Energy Post

The best thinkers on energy

Europe’s Carbon Capture pipeline: 40+ projects. But where’s the policy support and market creation?

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13 different European countries have announced more than 40 carbon capture projects. Most are yet to become operational, but the commitment from the private sector – ranging from new players to established energy and industry majors – is clear. Now is the time for governments to create for CCUS the kind of policies that accelerated the growth of wind and solar, says Lee Beck at the Clean Air Task Force. Norway and the Netherlands are taking those … [Read more...]

China’s energy system: record renewables expansion, but coal still dominates

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Lara Dombrowski and Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool give the latest headline figures for China’s energy system. In 2020 electricity generation in China went up by 298 TWh – an increase equal to 60% of Germany’s total. That year, renewables capacity increased more than ever before. That made China responsible for nearly 50% of global renewable capacity additions. But China has higher CO2 emissions than all the OECD countries combined. And continued … [Read more...]

ELCC: for predicting how much storage a grid really needs

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How much storage does a grid need? Too little leads to blackouts. Too much means money wasted. Getting the predictions wrong will skew policy priorities and investments, and slow the transition to a clean electric grid. Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) measures a resource’s ability to produce energy when the grid is most likely to experience electricity shortfalls. Mark Specht at the Union of Concerned Scientists explains how it works. … [Read more...]

Financial incentives for Grid Modernisation: the problem with guaranteed returns on investment

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Grid modernisation is going to be very expensive. What’s the best way to pay for it? The financial incentives governments put in place now will determine what investments get made, how cost-effectively it’s done, and who ultimately pays. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas explains that a common method is for a government to give some sort of guaranteed return on investment for the new asset. But it’s far from ideal. … [Read more...]

Don’t commit to Hydrogen pipelines yet? Trucks can do the same job more flexibly

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Could trucks be a better way to transport (and even store) hydrogen than pipelines? Yes, says a research team led by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), mainly because of the flexibility they offer particularly in the early stages of the hydrogen roll-out. Kathryn O'Neill at MIT explains the findings. A pipeline can take 10 years to build, during which time the locations where the supply and demand must be met are likely to have moved, given the … [Read more...]

EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism lacks the detail to drive industry’s relocation near clean energy

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High emissions industries should be relocated to where the cheap clean energy is. So long as the shipping costs (in terms of price and emissions) aren’t prohibitively high, those locations can be anywhere in the world. To get the calculations right, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (accounting for the emissions of imported goods) must be harmonised internationally. They must also – crucially – count all relevant emissions. But the EU’s draft … [Read more...]

Ramping-up EU hydrogen markets with effective Regulation

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On Wednesday (June 16, 2021), Energy Post is hosting a panel with representatives from ELIA, SNAM and BASF to discuss the best approach to market and system design for Hydrogen. It's free and you can register here. In this article, Walter Boltz, Senior European Energy Advisor, makes the case for a regulatory framework 'mostly identical' to the one so painstakingly developed for natural gas with a few practical differences - but this won't suit … [Read more...]

Where to build new Wind Turbines in Germany? Lowest cost vs residents and nature

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Germany was a wind energy leader. But by 2019 it was only ranked sixth globally for newly installed capacity per year. Antje Nieber and Paul Lehmann at the University of Leipzig explain why. At its heart is a conflict of priorities: lowest cost versus the interests of residents and nature, being played out at the national and federal levels. The switch from feed-in tariff support to lowest-cost tenders stalled a lot of wind projects. Lawsuits and … [Read more...]

NW Europe’s Hydrogen targets: ambition must match reality

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The IEA’s report released earlier this year, “Hydrogen in North-Western Europe: A vision towards 2030”, welcomes the fact that the six countries analysed - Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK – have the ambition to build a hydrogen economy. They are Europe’s major hydrogen producers and consumers, have major ports that already service this sector, have natural gas infrastructure that can be repurposed, and access … [Read more...]

U.S. DoE: National Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Energy-Efficient Buildings

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Buildings account for more than 70% of U.S. electricity use and one-third of economy-wide CO2 emissions. Andrew Satchwell at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory presents the U.S. Department of Energy’s comprehensive plan, “A National Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings”, that could deliver up to $200bn in savings to the U.S. power system and cut CO2 emissions by 80m tons per year by 2030 (6% of total power sector emissions). … [Read more...]

The EU’s “Fit for 55” package: a primer on the EU ETS and other main policy levers

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On July 14 the European Commission will present the much awaited “Fit for 55” legislative package. Lara Dombrowski and Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool have written a very useful primer on what’s at stake for the EU ETS, along with a summary of the other main policy levers that will be decided upon. The authors describe the EU ETS as the central instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It caps emissions for 10,000 power sector, industrial … [Read more...]

Finland starts excavation of world’s first Deep Geologic Nuclear Waste Repository

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Finland’s policy is to dispose of, within its borders, spent nuclear fuel rather than reprocess it. Excavation of a deep geological repository - for final disposal - at Olkiluoto began in May and is a world first. Not even the U.S., with its waste from over 130 nuclear reactors built since the 1950s, has committed to one. James Conca looks at Finland’s history of nuclear waste disposal, how it got to this decision, and the disposal method. The … [Read more...]

Norway an EV role model? Their pathway is expensive and paid for with oil & gas exports

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Norway is an EV leader thanks to a generous pot of tax incentives. Today, battery-electric cars make up more than half of all new car sales in Norway. Schalk Cloete takes a detailed look at what those incentives cost, and how many tonnes of CO2 they avoid. In short, Norway – a major oil and gas exporter - needs to sell over 100 barrels of oil (which emits 40 tonnes of CO2) to pay for the tax breaks it gives EVs to avoid one tonne of CO2. And … [Read more...]

Germany: will the end of feed-in tariffs mean the end of citizens-as-energy-producers

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Germany’s feed-in tariffs ran for 20 years. The guaranteed electricity price and connection to the grid incentivised ordinary citizens and communities to invest in smaller scale solar, biomass and wind generation for their homes and local areas. But that guaranteed price is now too expensive, and so the tariffs are ending and lowest-bid auctions are taking over. It’s the bigger players who are winning those auctions, and some of the existing … [Read more...]

Robots can make Offshore Windfarm maintenance better, safer, cheaper

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Maintaining offshore windfarms is expensive, and around 80% of the cost is spent on the support vehicles and the technicians working in often dangerous conditions. It’s not just the turbines. By 2030 they’ll need an extra 2.5m kilometres of new submarine cables globally to get the power on to shore. David Flynn at Heriot-Watt University explains how a combination of robots, AI and humans could do a much better, safer job and cut costs. Drones – … [Read more...]