• Energy Research
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 1. No poverty close
• IT close
• AU close
• CA close

Abstract This paper contributes to the existing literature as well as policy debates by examining energy intensity and its determinants in China's regional economies. The analysis is based on a comprehensive database of China's regional energy balance constructed for this project. Through its focus on regional China, this study extends the existing literature, which mainly covers nationwide studies. It is found in this paper that energy intensity declined substantially in China. The main contributing factor is the improvement in energy efficiency. Changes in the economic structure have so far affected energy intensity modestly. Thus there is considerable scope to reduce energy intensity through the structural transformation of the Chinese economy in the future.

Vor dem Hintergrund eines zunehmenden globalen Energiebedarfs und der Gefahr einer anthropogenen Störung des Klimasystems durch die Emission von Treibhausgasen gilt es, tragfähige Strategien und Perspektiven für eine nachhaltige Energieversorgung zu entwickeln. Der verstärkten Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien wird dabei vielfach eine Schlüsselrolle zur Bewältigung dieser Herausforderungen zugesprochen. Einer weit verbreiteten Ausschöpfung der auch in Deutschland in großem Maße verfügbaren Potenzialen an regenerativen Energieträgern stehen jedoch häufig noch die damit verbundenen hohen Kosten im Vergleich zu fossilen Energieträgern entgegen. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es daher zu untersuchen, welchen Beitrag erneuerbare Energieträger in einem wettbewerblichen Marktumfeld langfristig zur Energieversorgung leisten können und in welchem Umfang erneuerbare Energieträger durch die Internalisierung der Treibhausgasvermeidungskosten in den Energiepreisen profitieren können. Zur Bewertung der Rolle erneuerbarer Energieträger sind mit Blick auf das Gesamtenergiesystem Interdependenzen zwischen der Nutzung erneuerbarer Energieträger und den übrigen Sektoren des Energiesystems zu berücksichtigen. Neben der Vernetzung des Energiesystems in horizontaler Richtung durch Prozessketten über Sektoren hinweg und in vertikaler Richtung durch die Konkurrenz regenerativer mit fossilen Energietechnologien sind dabei auch Kopplungen über Energiepreise, deren Höhe über die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit einer regenerativen Energietechnologie entscheidet, sowie die energie- und preisseitigen Effekte durch Einführung energiepolitischer Instrumente zu beachten. Aufgrund dieser Systemzusammenhänge wird daher ein auf dem Ansatz der linearen Programmierung basierendes intertemporales Energiesystemmodell verwendet, in dem die Energiewirtschaft Deutschlands von der Primär- bis zur Nutzenergie technologisch detailliert abgebildet und hinsichtlich der Systemkosten optimiert wird. Um die Wechselwirkungen innerhalb des Energiesystems aufzuzeigen, werden sich z. T. ergänzende methodische Verfahren entwickelt und eingesetzt. Neben einem Bilanzierungsmodell zur Ermittlung von die Prozessvorketten berücksichtigender Indikatoren zählen hierzu ein auf der Dualitätstheorie beruhendes Verfahren zur Dekomposition der Energie- und Zertifikatspreise, Methoden der Sensitivitätsanalyse zur Ermittlung der fundamentalen preisbestimmenden Faktoren und Techniken der parametrischen Programmierung, um neben Variationen der Modelleingangsdaten Treibhausgasvermeidungskostenkurven und Angebotskurven regenerativ erzeugten Stroms unter Berücksichtigung der systemaren Zusammenhänge im Energiesektor abzuleiten. Mit Hilfe des entwickelten Energiesystemmodells und der Analysemethoden werden die zukünftigen Entwicklungsperspektiven erneuerbarer Energien im deutschen Energiesystem bis zum Jahr 2050 szenariogestützt untersucht. In den Szenarien werden einerseits die mit einer Quote erneuerbarer Energien in der Stromerzeugung verbundenen energie-, kosten- und emissionsseitigen Auswirkungen betrachtet und andererseits der Beitrag erneuerbarer Energien in Konkurrenz mit alternativen Minderungsoptionen zur Erreichung von Treibhausgasminderungszielen dargestellt. Weiterhin werden in simultanen Variationen die Wechselwirkungen zwischen beiden Instrumenten und ihre Auswirkungen speziell auf die Stromerzeugungsstruktur und die Strompreise beleuchtet. Against the background of an increasing global energy demand and the danger of an anthropogenic disturbance of the climate system by the emission of greenhouse gases, it is necessary to develop sustainable strategies and perspectives for the future energy system. The increased usage of renewable sources is identified from many sides as a key element in strategies to overcome these challenges. However, a widely utilisation of the also in Germany large existing potentials of renewable energy carriers is currently still opposed by the associated high costs relative to fossil energy sources. The intention of the submitted thesis is to analyse the contribution of renewable energy sources in the long-run under competitive market conditions to the energy supply and to study the extent to which renewable energy sources can benefit from the internalisation of greenhouse gas abatement costs in the energy prices. To assess the role of renewable energy sources in the context of the entire energy system, interdependencies between the utilisation of renewable energy sources with other aspects and sectors of the energy system have to be taken into account. In addition to the interconnectedness of the energy system in the horizontal direction by process chains across sectors and in the vertical direction by the competition of renewable with conventional fossil technologies also the linkage by energy prices, which serve as benchmark for the competitiveness of a renewable energy technology, and the energy and price related effects caused by the introduction of policy instruments have to be considered. Due to these interactions within the system, a linear programming based dynamic energy system model is used, which depicts technologically detailed the German energy sector from the primary energy supply to the end-use energy demand side and optimises the energy system with respect to its total costs. In order to reveal the interactions and dependencies within the energy system, several partially complementary methodologies have been developed and applied to the model. Apart from a balance model that allows the calculation of specific indicators under consideration of previous process chains, the methodology comprises a method for decomposing energy and certificate prices based on the duality theory, the method of sensitivity analysis to identify the fundamental price-determining activities and parametric programming techniques to derive greenhouse gas abatement cost curves and renewable electricity supply cost curves. With the help of the developed energy system model and analysis tools, the future development perspectives of renewable energy in the German energy system until the year 2050 are studied in various scenarios. In these scenarios, on the one side the energy-, cost- and emission related effects associated with a quota for the electricity production from renewable sources are studied, on the other side the contribution of renewable energy sources to given greenhouse gas abatement targets in competition with alternative abatement measures is examined. Furthermore the interdependencies between these two policy instruments on each other and their effects on the structure of the electricity sector and on the electricity prices are highlighted.

The assessment of the ‘quality’ of built heritage is a complex transdisciplinary issue, which both public administrations and real estate developers need to carefully consider when making any interventions. Recent international climate regulations underline that currently around 75% of buildings in the EU are not energy efficient. In Italy, those inefficient buildings are more than 50 years old and, if subjected to retrofit interventions, risk being totally transformed and losing their historical value in favor of a more contemporary use. This work aimed to study the residential heritage of the second half of the 20th century in the real estate market and to understand if, how, and in what measure the building and architectonical qualities are recognized and monetized by buyers. The city of Turin was chosen as a study area, and residential building qualities were analyzed using two quality indicators to perform a GWR on market POIs. The results highlighted that housing historical qualities are not homogeneously recognized by the real estate market, in favor of green ones. This work can help both public and private bodies to identify which ‘invisible’ quality residential buildings are immediately exploitable for enhancement strategies, with more respectful retrofitting interventions and a modern protection policy.

Abstract In this paper, we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption, and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in Italy in the period from 1998 to 2011. The paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries. The study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems. A simulation exercise, using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available, shows that, regardless of the affordability index adopted, the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty.

Abstract In this paper, energy and exergy analyses of the geothermal-based hydrogen production via thermochemical water decomposition using a new, four-step copper–chlorine (Cu–Cl) cycle are conducted, and the respective cycle energy and exergy efficiencies are examined. Also, a parametric study is performed to investigate how each step of the cycle and its overall cycle performance are affected by reference environment temperatures, reaction temperatures, as well as energy efficiency of the geothermal power plant itself. As a result, overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the cycle are found to be 21.67% and 19.35%, respectively, for a reference case.

The joint impact of human activities and climate change on natural resources lead to biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is important to select protected areas through systematic conservation planning. The present study assessed how representative natural habitats are protected under the nature conservation network, and to identify new—but so far insufficiently—protected areas containing these habitats for sustainable management. We used the Marxan model to select the most valuable insufficiently protected natural habitats in the Czech Republic as a representative example for a conservation strategy for Central–Eastern European environments. We set three conservation targets (25%, 50%, and 75%), defining how much percent area of valuable representative natural habitats should be added to the area of the habitats already included in the Nature Protection Network. To implement these conservation targets it is necessary to preserve 22,932 ha, 72,429, ha and 124,363 ha respectively of the conservation targets occurring in the insufficiently protected areas, and 17,255 ha, 51,620 ha, and 84,993 ha respectively of the conservation features in the areas without protection status. Marxan was revealed to be an appropriate tool to select the most valuable and insufficiently protected natural habitats for sustainable management.

Abstract Eradicating poverty and mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are core issues of global sustainable development goals (SDGs), and China is struggling in realizing these targets. The poverty reduction that leads to popualtion structure and lifestyle changes would have an impact on GHG emission changes. However, few studies have assessed the historical and future impacts of the poverty allevation on China's emissions. Here by linking Chinese Multi-Regional Input Output (MRIO) database to the global MRIO database EXIOBASE, and using provincial household consumption data, we identified the distribution of Chinese household greenhouse gas footprints (HGFs) by income groups in 2015 at the national and provinical levels. Moreover, we focused on the historical impact of poverty alleviation on HGFs during 2010–2015, and developed four scenarios to project future HGFs changes due to poverty alleviation by 2030. We find that eradicating extreme poverty in the secanrio S2, i.e., bringing people to an income above $1.9 daily, does not cause a large emission impact with current technological level. However, lifting people from a higher poverty line of $5.5 per day in the sceanrio S4 results in a 1.6% increase in emissions compared with the scenario S1 without any poverty reduction goals. Furthermore, realizing a higher poverty reduction target will result in an increase of emissions contribution from internatioanl supply chains due to the differences in consumption patterns among different income groups. Our study highlights the conflict between the high poverty alleviaition goal and emission reduciton in China, and reminds us of the need to make more technological efforts for avoiding the large emissions embodied in international supply chains.

Abstract There are instances in remote areas where heat is being wasted, e.g., in internal combustion, engines, etc. Some of this heat can be recovered to produce distilled water in solar stills. The solar still replaces the cooling tower, ponds, or radiators normally used to control the engine temperature. The diesel cooling water in such a system remains separate from the saline water in the solar still. The advantages of using such a system compared with a conventional solar still are: 1. (a) water costs are very much reduced 2. (b) the area occupied is much less, i.e., about 1 5 th 3. (c) production has much less seasonal variation 4. (d) the efficiency of the solar still is improved due to the higher operating temperatures. From experiments conducted at Highett using a Mk VI solar still fitted with a simple heat exchanger and a separate electrically-heated source of hot water to simulate the waste heat, design data are not available for application to working systems. The information required to match a solar still to a diesel's cooling requirement is: 1. (a) engine efficiency 2. (b) hourly fuel consumption 3. (c) hourly solar radiation 4. (d) hourly ambient temperatures. A by-product of this work has been the production of a “solar water heater” which costs less than that of the cheapest conventional system. This “solar” hot water system uses a heat exchanger similar to what is used to transfer the waste heat to the saline water. It is envisaged to have hot water productions approximately the same as the distilled water productions. The influence of hot water production on the output of the waste heat solar still is discussed.