EU Member States have inadvertently supported with their own subsidies the renewable energy targets of other Member States, a practice that violates EU internal market rules, explains Kim Talus at UEF Law School. He looks at how Denmark subsidised Danish biomethane producers who exported to Sweden, where Swedish consumers were benefitting from subsidies already. This promoted Danish biomethane producers at the expense of rivals. In December 2022 … [Read more...]
Low Emission Hydrogen: creating markets to get buyers to make firm commitments
Low emission hydrogen is expected to play an important role in global decarbonisation, though costs today are very high and must come down. Economies of scale will help, but production is yet to pick up pace as there are inadequate ‘demand signals’ which result in financial risks for project developers. Kapil Narula and Luciano Caratori of Climate Champions Team, Laurent Antoni at IPHE, and Nigel Topping (former UN Climate Change High-Level … [Read more...]
V2G: modelling how EV batteries can provide storage to the grid
V2G (vehicle-to-grid) technology allows parked EVs to store and/or inject electricity into the grid when needed. The main benefit is to avoid the expense and disruption of building dedicated large-scale grid batteries when EVs and charging infrastructure are already ramping up. Though most EVs and charge points are not V2G-ready, now is the time to plan ahead, measure the true potential and identify the challenges. Ibtihal Abdelmotteleb, Matteo … [Read more...]
Buildings: how can Europe reduce emissions from Construction?
11% of global energy-related carbon emissions are embedded in the construction of buildings. Though focus has been on reducing operational emissions (28%, from heating and cooling, power etc.) there is not enough attention paid to construction, explains Carolina Kyllmann at CLEW. She looks at all the issues, including production of materials, transport to the site, construction, renovations, demolition and reuse of materials, and more. Kyllmann … [Read more...]
Half of fossil fuel Methane reduction targets can be met at no net cost. Why isn’t it happening?
We need to cut global methane emissions from fossil fuels by 75% by 2030 to be on target to limit warming to 1.5°C. That equates to 90 Mt of the current total of 120 Mt of annual fossil fuel methane emissions. The IEA says 80 Mt can be avoided through the deployment of known and existing technologies, often at low – or even negative – cost. And the 75% cut needs $170bn in spending to 2030, a very achievable sum given it represents less than 5% of … [Read more...]
Just Transition: UK’s Port Talbot steelworks are closing. What can be learnt from the Netherlands and Sweden?
A classic “just transition” story is being played out in the UK, a high income nation and Europe’s second biggest economy. Tata Steel plans to cut almost 3,000 jobs at the UK’s largest steelworks. The location, Port Talbot, is one of the most deprived places in the UK and the steelworks there are its largest private sector employer. Tata is under pressure to decarbonise its steel production, so will switch to an electric arc furnace that recycles … [Read more...]
Building and financing the expansion of Europe’s electrical interconnection market
In the first of a series of four articles covering the expanding market for electrical interconnections in Europe, Jean-Baptiste Vaujour at the Emlyon Business School sets the scene by presenting the main points and current developments around the difficulties of building and financing these assets. Interconnectors allow power to be sent across borders to meet the shortfall where supply is not meeting demand. For example, European electricity … [Read more...]
Investing billions in new cross-border Electricity Transmission capacity can cover its costs within a few years
The huge divergence of electricity prices between nations after the energy crises of 2021 and 2022 exposed Europe’s pressing need to increase cross-border transmission capacity, explain George Dimopoulos, Conall Heussaff and Georg Zachmann at Bruegel. Without it, generation costs will be higher, emissions too, and new generation will continue to be badly congested. The author’s calculations reveal that one additional MW of cross-border capacity … [Read more...]
Cost vs Resilience: Europe’s sourcing strategy will shape the regional Hydrogen economy
The upcoming EU Hydrogen Bank pilot auction and trilogue discussions are focussing minds on the future of hydrogen. Jonas Lotze and Massimo Moser at TransnetBW and Janina Erb, Roman Flatau, Felix Greven and Max Labmayr at d-fine present the results of their modelling of two hydrogen sourcing scenarios: "Global Market" (GM) where the import of hydrogen into Europe is unrestricted, and "Energy Resilient Europe" (ERE) where almost all hydrogen is … [Read more...]
Embodied Carbon Emissions: understanding the different methodologies being used around the world
The measurement of the embodied carbon emissions of goods tells us what greenhouse gas emissions are generated during the production and transportation of those goods. This achieves two main things. Firstly, it allows producers to understand where their emissions are coming from, and so reduce them. Secondly, it opens the door to putting a price on those emissions, thus incentivising producers to reduce them. But, as Max Gruenig at E3G explains, … [Read more...]
How new and better science is driving climate litigation
Delta Merner at the Union of Concerned Scientists makes her predictions for climate litigation in 2023. There will be much more, globally. The stand out observation is that new and better science is driving the evidence, impacting the litigants and the courts. That points at major changes to the litigation landscape. More granular geographical evidence allows local litigants to more accurately make a case for connecting emissions and pollutants … [Read more...]
EU Solar has avoided 20bcm of gas imports and saved €29bn
Solar generation in the EU has avoided the import of 20bcm of gas that would have cost €29bn, explains Paweł Czyżak at Ember, writing for Carbon Brief. The new solar power added since 2021 alone avoided €6bn of gas imports. Record EU solar generation increased by 28% in the summer of 2022, compared with the same period a year earlier. And it’s growing very quickly, with a consistent 15% year-on-year increases in installed solar capacity – from … [Read more...]
Electricity markets with high shares of Wind and Solar will need Nuclear
When electricity markets have high shares of wind and solar – the goal of many regions around the world – is it more efficient to build a nuclear power plant instead of investing further in more renewable capacity? The answer is yes, according to a study by Machiel Mulder, Xinyu Li and Arjen Veenstra at the University of Groningen. In essence, it’s because nuclear benefits from the high (scarcity) prices when there’s little wind or sunshine. Here … [Read more...]
Netherlands and China co-operate on Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage for heating and cooling
Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) accesses the stable temperature of groundwater to warm buildings in winter and cool them in summer. The solution uses much less power than conventional heating and cooling systems. As Daisy Chi at ECECP explains, ATES first took off in China in the 1960s but ran into problems with the required circulation of the groundwater. However, the technology has been developed and optimised in the Netherlands: of the … [Read more...]
Europe must simultaneously replace Russia’s fossil exports and accelerate its clean energy deployment
The Ukraine crisis has had an immediate impact on Europe’s strategy for energy supply security. And this week’s sudden halting of gas supplies by Russia to Poland and Bulgaria only emphasises the urgency. Dolf Gielen, Ricardo Gorini, Luis Janeiro and Seán Collins at IRENA look at the best options, basing their findings on their latest “World Energy Transitions Outlook”, published in March, that lays out a routemap for the next eight years for … [Read more...]