Denmark is proving itself to be a decarbonisation leader, happy to turn its back on its history of oil and gas production and heavy reliance on coal. Its ambitious goal of cutting GHG emissions by 70% by 2030 makes it a global policy frontrunner, second only to Finland which aims to be climate neutral by 2035. Thibault Menu references his report for IFRI that asks what makes Denmark special. It has a long tradition of providing stability and … [Read more...]
China: decoupling GDP growth from rising emissions
To set up this week’s important online event (Tuesday 13th & Wednesday 14th April) “China: Carbon Neutral by 2060 -EFFICIENCY FIRST” we have an overview of China’s energy transition. Everyone agrees its performance is critical for the world to achieve the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5C by 2050. China made significant progress in 2020 with policy frameworks, renewable capacity additions and EVs, but it also added 38 GW of new … [Read more...]
EU Recovery funds: where is the support for District Heating?
District Heating is an efficient way to heat homes, particularly in a country like Latvia where 58% of its primary energy consumption is used for heating. But Selīna Vancāne at Riga City Council is very concerned that the draft EU Recovery plans do not include any support under the climate goals for district heating projects. Perhaps it’s because of a blind spot: most of Europe is prioritising individual heating units powered by electricity. … [Read more...]
A people-powered energy system: activating the community energy market for bioenergy
Among others, lack of preparedness for communities to tap the full bioenergy market potential[1], lack of bioenergy stakeholders’ awareness of the potential of communities and missing/ unsupportive (local, regional and national) framework and policy conditions. For a people-powered energy system, the Horizon 2020-funded project BECoop (2020-2023) aims at putting communities in charge of their local renewable (bio)energy generation. … [Read more...]
Decarbonising end-use sectors: buildings, transport, industry. Which strategies are best?
The rapid pace of change in the energy sector is a positive sign for the transition. But the disruption it causes creates another big problem. It makes it harder to predict what will happen next. That makes strategies and pathways harder to design, and increases the risk of stranded assets. To try to come to grips with that future, Sean Ratka, Paul Durrant and Francisco Boshell summarise the findings of IRENA's 4-day “Innovation Week” held last … [Read more...]
Will Germany’s “EEG” energy law amendments make renewable targets harder to meet?
Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz/EEG), now 20 years old, is under discussion as a new amendment is supposed to come into force on January 1st 2021. Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool takes a detailed look at the highlights, including the new and higher targets, the financial role of municipalities, clean electricity subsidies, and solar and wind tender volumes. He explains there has been serious criticism of the … [Read more...]
City-level emissions reductions: what can successful cities teach us
The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (EUCoM) requires their member cities to commit to exceeding their national goals. EUCoM is one of the world’s largest subnational climate action networks, with over 1,000 cities and home to 50m people. Writing for Carbon Brief, Angel Hsu, Nihit Goyal and Amy Weinfurter at Yale-NUS College review the data to see how successful they have been. About 40% of the cities show emission reductions that are … [Read more...]
IEA: Without accelerating clean energy innovations we cannot hit net zero by 2050
The impressive rise of renewables and energy efficiency, alone, will not be sufficient to meet the world’s 2050 emissions goal, says the IEA in its flagship Clean Energy Innovation report. New technologies, taken all the way through to widespread adoption by the market, must become an essential part of the net zero pathway. The stark warning is that existing policies to decarbonise shipping, trucks, aviation and heavy industry are not nearly … [Read more...]
Waste Heat Recovery can help replace Poland’s District Heating coal
Three quarters of all district heating in Poland comes from burning coal. So the country is looking for ways to reduce this. It’s why subsidies are provided for combined heat and power (CHP) plants that burn either coal, gas or biomass, which all have lower emissions. But a report by IEEFA authored by Gerard Wynn, Arjun Flora and Paolo Coghe says that waste heat recovery (WHR) – currently unsubsidised – is both emissions free and can be … [Read more...]
Biofuels “light-to-power” slump: because photosynthesis is no match for Solar PV
The success of energy crops depends on many things. But the first link in the chain is a weak one: natural photosynthesis, the conversion of light into energy by plants. The problem is the efficiency of photosynthesis is no match for that of a modern solar PV cell. And while solar technology keeps improving, mother nature – not a signatory to the Paris Agreement – has no plans to do so. Any progress must come from biotechnology which is slow … [Read more...]
No Energiewende without Wärmewende: making Germany’s Heating emissions climate neutral (…nearly)
In Germany, space and water heating in buildings accounts for almost a third of total final energy consumption. Because over 90% of its 22m buildings are fuelled by oil and gas, that makes the sector emissions very intensive. The government’s ambition is to have a "nearly climate neutral building stock" by 2050. But although those emissions have fallen by 44% since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011. Freja Eriksen at Clean Energy … [Read more...]
“Climate leader” UK: why did low-carbon electricity generation stall in 2019?
In 2019, just 1TWh of low-carbon electricity (wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass) was added in the UK. That’s after a decade of adding an average of 9TWh/year. Why? The UK needs to know, given an extra 15TWh/year is required until 2030 to meet emissions goals on top of the planned electrification of transport and heating. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans runs through their thorough analysis. Wind power alone rose by 8TWh in 2019, but was offset by … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 v the IEA’s WEO 2019
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published mid-November. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another, like a very high carbon tax) in 2030: in his opinion it will be the best way to accelerate the transition to meet the Paris goals as the 1.5°C … [Read more...]
Decarbonising industry: how much policy-driven adoption is needed to let the market take over
Decarbonising industry is one of the world’s greatest challenges. The costs, today, are huge and therefore the technology adoption required has hardly started. But several technologies already exist. Gbemi Oluleye at Imperial College (UK) explains the first step is to measure the market size for each sub-sector, then estimate how much policy-driven adoption is required to achieve the cost reductions that make the change viable. After that, no … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 4 of 5): Nuclear, biomass and CCS
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. To make his predictions he has created simulations of cost-optimal technology mixes and made his own assumptions over the drivers that will affect them: policy, technological progress, demand growth and behavioural change are all included. If nuclear, biomass and CCS take off they will … [Read more...]
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