Renewable Energy and Local Development
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MODULE 1 Renewable energy and local development Open Educational Resources for online course of renewable energy for local development Coordinator: Leonor Hernández Authors: Hèctor Beltran and Vicent A. Querol Place and year of edition: Castellón de la Plana (Spain), 2016 Coordinator: Leonor Hernández Authors: Hèctor Beltran Vicent A. Querol CC BY-NC-SA This licence allows others remix, transform, or build upon the material without commercial purposes, giving appropriate credit and distributing their contributions under the same license as the original. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6035/IN2RURAL.2016.09 The PDF version of this document is available in: http://in2rural.ub.ro/, http://in2rural.uji.es/ and http://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/handle/10234/154485 The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of acronyms …………………...…………………………………………………... 4 CHAPTER 1. FIRST STEPS INTO RENEWABLE ENERGIES …………………. 7 Subchapter 1.1 - The renewable resources: sun, wind, biomass ………………………... 7 Subchapter 1.2 - Renewable energies along the history ………………………………... 16 Subchapter 1.3 - The distributed generation, a new electric power system paradigm ...... 22 CHAPTER 2. THE RENEWABLE ENERGIES PANORAMA …………………... 28 Subchapter 2.1 - Economic situation of energy and electricity around Europe ………… 28 Subchapter 2.2 - Renewable energy situation around Europe ………………………..… 33 Subchapter 2.3 - Influence of the regulatory framework on the current panorama ….….. 39 CHAPTER 3. THE RENEWABLE ENERGIES TECHNOLOGY ……………….. 44 Subchapter 3.1 - Basic technological introduction to the renewable systems ………..… 44 Subchapter 3.2 - Energy storage systems as a key factor for renewable energies ………. 59 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL AREAS ……...……...………………. 73 Subchapter 4.1 – Introduction to the rural development ……………...…….………….. 73 Subchapter 4.2. Differencial aspects of development in rural areas …………………..... 83 Subchapter 4.3. Social sustainability and development. Living and working in rural areas ……………………………………...……………………………………………. 89 CHAPTER 5. HOW INITIATIVES CAN PROMOTE SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY FOR RURAL AREAS ………………………………………… 96 Subchapter 5.1 – Considering actors, factors and agents ………………………………. 96 Subchapter 5.2. Renewables as an opportunity for social sustainability and development in rural areas ……………………………………………………………... 105 Subchapter 5.3. European financing for Renewable Energy and Rural Development ..... 112 Renewable Energy for Local Development MODULE 1 LIST OF ACRONYMS Battery energy storage system (BESS) Combined Heat and Power plants (CHP) Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y de la Competencia (CNMC) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) Concentrating solar power (CSP) Electric Vehicle (EV) Electrical Power System (EPS) Energy storage (ES) Energy storage system (ESS) European Agricultural Fund For Rural Development (EAFRD) European Energy Efficiency Fund (EEEF) European Environmental Agency (EEA) European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) European Union (EU) Feed-in tariffs (FIT) Flywheel Energy Storage Systems (FESS) Fuel cells (FC) Future for Rural Energy in Europe (FREE) Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) Gross Value Added (GVA) "The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein." 1 Renewable Energy for Local Development MODULE 1 International Energy Agency (IEA) International Financing Institutions (IFI) International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Local Action Groups (LAGs) Local Administrative Units at lower level (LAU2) Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Photovoltaic (PV) Pumped-Hydro Energy Storage (PHES) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) Production Tax Credit (PTC) Renewable Energy (RE) Red Eléctrica de España (REE) Renewable Energy Directive (RED) Renewable Energy policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) Renewable energy systems (RES) Renewables Obligation (RO) Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) Research and Development (R&D) Solar water heating (SWH) Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) "The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein." 2 Renewable Energy for Local Development MODULE 1 Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) Sustainable Energy Financing Facilities (SEFF) TeraWatt-Hour (TWh) Thermoelectric energy storage (TEES) Transmission System Operator (TSO) UltraCapacitors (UC) Unión Española Fotovoltaica (UNEF) "The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein." 3 Renewable energy for local development course MODULE 1: RENEWABLE ENERGY AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1. First steps into renewable energies Subchapter 1.1 - The renewable resources: sun, wind, biomass Hector Beltran San Segundo Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain Summary: To start the course, we will initially focus on the nature and characteristics of three natural and renewable resources: the sun, the wind, and the biomass. Although basically the three of them are obtained from the sun (solar rays themselves, movements of air caused by the heat of the sun, and energy to grow plants) their characteristics differ substantially from each other and this strongly defines the technology used to make them profitable. Introduction Renewable energy resources are defined as those materials, substances, or natural phenomena that are naturally replenished on a human timescale such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, rivers, woods, geothermal heat…. These resources are often used to provide energy in four important areas of our society: electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, and rural (off-grid) energy services. Their biggest advantage with regard to conventional or traditional energy resources (oil, coal, natural gas) is that the latter present limited reserves that will be over in a given period of time while renewables are replenished periodically. To get an idea of the differences in the availability of resources humanity possesses nowadays, Figure 1 presents a comparison among the estimated conventional energy resource reserves versus the renewable energy resources annual potential. Figure 1. Estimated total reserves of conventional sources vs. the annual potential of renewable sources. Source: PVPS PhD Course by Remus Teodorescu at Aalborg University, Denmark. "The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein." 1 Renewable energy for local development course Also in contrast with conventional resources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries, renewable ones are present all around the world. The possibility to profit them in a commercial way opens the door to energetic independence or energy security for many countries, as well as cooperates with the climate change mitigation. So much that the international public opinion shows a strong support for promoting renewable projects and many countries already enjoy an important presence of these technologies in their energy mix. All in all, renewables already represented a 16,7% of the global energy consumption in 2010, Figure 2. Figure 2. Total world energy consumption by source 2010, from REN21 Renewables 2012 Global Status Report. At the national level, at least 30 nations around the world already have renewable energy contributing to more than 20 percent of their energy supply. National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade and beyond. In fact, note how some regions (mainly islands) and at least two countries (Iceland and Norway) generate all their electricity using renewable energy already. Many other countries have set a goal to reach 100% renewable energy in the coming future. For example, the Danish government decided to switch the total energy supply (electricity, mobility and heating/cooling) to 100% renewable energy by 2050. Germany is also on the way. And, in general, all the countries in the European Union present this trend given that they have the overall goal of achieving the 20% target of renewables in 2020. While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, where energy is often