• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
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Abstract In some shelf sea regions of the world, the tidal range is sufficient to convert the potential energy of the tides into electricity via tidal range power plants. As an island continent, Australia is one such region – a previous study estimated that Australia hosts up to 30% of the world’s resource. Here, we make use of a gridded tidal dataset (TPXO9) to characterize the tidal range resource of Australia. We examine the theoretical resource, and we also investigate the technical resource through 0D modelling with tidal range power plant operation. We find that the tidal range resource of Australia is 2004 TWh/yr, or about 22% of the global resource. This exceeds Australia’s total energy consumption for 2018/2019 (1721 TWh/yr), suggesting tidal range energy has the potential to make a substantial contribution to Australia’s electricity generation (265 TWh/yr in 2018/2019). Due to local resonance, the resource is concentrated in the sparsely populated Kimberley region of Western Australia. However, the tidal range resource in this region presents a renewable energy export opportunity, connecting to markets in southeast Asia. Combining the electricity from two complementary sites, with some degree of optimization tidal range schemes in this region can produce electricity for 45% of the year.

Abstract For the future energy system it becomes increasingly important that biogas plants produce electricity in a demand-oriented way to compensate electricity production from fluctuating sources like wind power and photovoltaics. Flexibilisation concepts provide a coordinated feeding management, which consider different gas production kinetics of used substrates to adjust the biogas production. To enable the generation of a prospective timetable, suitable forecast models for power demand were evaluated. The resulting 48-h forecasts of power demand of a “real-world laboratory” demonstrated that the four selected models achieve comparably good results with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) between 13 and 16%. Further evaluation showed that forecasts over longer periods of up to 14 days are advantageous as they are possible without compromising forecast quality.

Abstract With the increasing effects of climate change and high costs of energy, many rural Alaska communities are working to implement local alternative energy solutions to improve energy security. Integrating renewable energy systems can reduce reliance on fossil fuels and subsequently improve food, energy, and water (FEW) security. In this study, wind energy modeling techniques using local airport meteorological data were convolved with community loads to determine the most cost-effective combinations of wind turbine technology and dispatchable loads for improving FEW security in a southwestern Alaska village. This approach is different from wind assessments that exclusively analyze wind resources. A 100 kW wind turbine was determined to be suitable for the community, resulting in a capacity factor of 16.7% and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $1.15/kWh, with diminishing returns for higher wind turbine capacity. The results from the dispatchability study indicated that dispatchable loads could handle the intermittency of the wind resource with up to 86% of their annual load met. More work is needed to understand the impact of integrating and scheduling dispatchable loads into the grid in practice.

This study aims to unveil the heterogeneous impacts of import product diversification and institutional factors for achieving energy efficiency in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In doing so, the study employs robust econometric techniques such as Fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) co-integration, pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), pool mean group regressions, fixed effects, and random effects for panel data from 1990 to 2015 for selected OECD countries. The detailed empirical outcomes suggest that import product diversification is conducive to reducing the energy and carbon intensity (improvement in energy efficiency) in OECD countries. The empirical conclusions provide various guidelines to achieve cleaner and greener growth and align with various Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy, SDG 9: Industry, innovation, and infrastructure, and SDG 13: Climate action) of OECD countries. The paper elaborates fruitful policy suggestions regarding the diversification of imports and energy usecarbon emission-nexus for the OECD member nations. Based on the findings, policymakers and environmental scientists should strengthen the trade-energy and import portfolio policies to attain energy efficiency.