Modelling Malta's Energy System Towards Sustainability
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Modelling Malta’s Energy System towards Sustainability A path to EU Guideline Compliance Cost Efficiency and System Stability Sustainable Energy planning and Management Master thesis: Modelling Malta’s Energy System towards Sustainability Project period: 01.02.2014 – 03.06.2014 Supervisor: Associate Professor David Connolly ABSTRACT This project aims at investigating how the Maltese energy system could move towards more sustainability in order to comply with the European targets for 2020, while maintaining system stability and being cost effective. The results in this project point out that sufficient renewable energy source [RES] potential is prevalent on Malta in order to install sufficient RES technology capacity to reach the assigned country’s specific 10 % RES share on final energy consumption within the 2020 EU target guideline. Despite the currently backlogged development of RES technologies in the Maltese energy system and despite severe land utilisation conflicts in relation with the deployment of RES, a first step towards a decarbonisation of the Maltese energy sector is possible and is rather a political issue than a technical or economic problem. The major role for a transformation of Malta’s energy system would lie in the use of solar water heaters and heat pumps, which would have almost no impact in regards of the land consumption issue and on the energy system’s stability. Both options imply positive economic, environmental and system stabilizing effects for Malta’s energy system. The installation of PV technology, which would have the highest theoretic potential among all considered technologies in this project, is strongly restrained through Malta’s geography and its energy system design. However, PV technology is also a viable solution when deployed in bounds according to a limitation of excess energy production. A major improvement for Malta’s energy system would be the introduction of e-mobility, which would have a positive impact on the use of PV panels as well. All the considered measures in this project, the technically maximal deployment of SWHs and HPs as well as a PV share of nearly 30 % within power production would allow increasing the RES share on final energy consumption from the current few percentage points to 20 % in 2030 without causing extra costs or system instability. Circulation: 2 Number of pages: 143 Date of Submission: 03.06.2015 Erik Breuer (20132937) ____________________________________ Eleonora Pilla (20137916) ____________________________________ Preface Although the project refers to a country strictly related to the British world, commas are chosen as decimal mark, while thousands are separated by dots. The energy unit is TWh in output and GJ or TWh in input. Volumes are referred to in cubic meters. Conversions from values in Btu, ktoe and cubic feet are operated. Installed capacity is expressed in MW. All prices in the project are reported in € and when the sources presented values in USD, the conversion factor used was 1,3. Since the authors used TWh in the modelling software EnergyPLAN, most of the numbers referring to energy quantities within the project are indicated in TWh as well. In most of the figures, energy quantities are indicated with three decimals, which seems rather dainty considering the lack of data to calculate precise numbers. However, the energy system on Malta is so small and minor differences in numbers expressed in TWh can already make a difference, which would be lost when too much rounding is applied. Nevertheless, the authors will at least round most of the numbers to two decimals within the text to make comprehension smoother to the reader. This study has been supported also by documents and informal information provided by relevant stakeholders, therefore the sources are not always publicly available. Despite cooperation with official institutions, this study has been conducted in a context of lack of data. Hence, numerous assumptions and approximations had to be made. A detailed methodology is provided in most of the chapters to justify assumptions to some extent. Nevertheless, the authors don´t take responsibility for the correctness of the provided results, in particular concerning the heating and cooling sector and the specific destination of electricity. List of abbreviations CEEP Critical Excess Energy Production CHP Combined heat and power EEEP Exportable Excess Energy Production EVs Electric Vehicles EU European Union FiT Feed in Tariffs G2V Grid to vehicle GSA Gas supply agreement GWh Gigawatt hour HP Heat Pumps IGA Intergovernmental agreement KWh Kilowatt hour LNG Liquefied Natural Gas LPG Liquefied Petroleum Gas MS Member State MWh Megawatt hour PPA Power Purchase Agreement PV Photovoltaic RES Renewable Energy Sources SWH Solar Water Heaters TWh Terawatt hour V2H Vehicle to Grid Table of Content 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. GUIDE THROUGH THE PROJECT ....................................................................................................... 4 2. APPROACH ............................................................................................................................ 6 2.1. PROBLEM FORMULATION .............................................................................................................. 6 2.2. DELIMITATION AND FOCUS ............................................................................................................ 7 2.2.1. EU Legislation .................................................................................................................. 7 2.2.2. Legislation from Maltese Government ............................................................................ 8 2.2.3. Geography ....................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.4. Further restraints ............................................................................................................. 8 2.3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................... 8 2.3.1. Choice Awareness and Lock-in Theory applied on Malta’s power system ...................... 8 2.4. PROJECT SET UP CONSTELLATION .................................................................................................. 10 2.5. POLICY FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................. 10 2.5.1. Energy Policies on Malta ............................................................................................... 12 3. DEMAND ............................................................................................................................. 15 3.1. GENERAL DEMAND METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................. 15 3.2. GROSS AND FINAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION ..................................................................................... 15 3.2.1. Historical Gross primary Energy consumption .............................................................. 15 3.2.2. Final energy consumption 2013 .................................................................................... 16 3.3. POWER DEMAND ....................................................................................................................... 17 3.3.1. Structure of power demand .......................................................................................... 17 3.3.2. Development of power demand .................................................................................... 18 3.3.3. Hourly Power Distribution ............................................................................................. 21 3.4. HEATING AND COOLING DEMAND AND TECHNOLOGY IN 2013 ........................................................... 23 3.4.1. Heating .......................................................................................................................... 24 3.4.2. Cooling ........................................................................................................................... 25 3.4.3. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 27 3.5. DEVELOPMENT OF HEATING SECTOR TO 2020 ................................................................................ 28 3.5.1. Technology Status Quo in 2020 ..................................................................................... 29 3.5.2. Heat Demand Upscaling to 2020 .................................................................................. 30 3.5.3. Hourly heating and cooling ........................................................................................... 31 3.6. FINAL ENERGY DEMAND IN 2020 ................................................................................................. 33 4. SUPPLY SIDE ........................................................................................................................ 34 4.1. ORGANISATIONAL SET UP OF MALTA’S POWER MARKET.................................................................... 34 4.2. CURRENT SUPPLY SIDE OF MALTA’S ENERGY SYSTEM AS IN 2014/2015 ............................................. 34 4.2.1. GHG Emissions ............................................................................................................... 35 4.3.