• Energy Research

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) have been defined as modes of collective prosumership under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II). We evaluate the benefits offered by RECs and the barriers and enablers impacting their uptake. Germany is taken as a case study for a novel multi-disciplinary assessment of a potential REC intended as a climate-neutral, mixed-use district. We found that energy cooperatives may not be suited to form RECs, but the future may see an uptake of innovative organizational structures such as the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan. It has been shown that a high degree of prosumership can provide technical and economic benefits with maximum greenhouse gas savings of 35% and a maximum self-consumption share of 61% compared to no prosumership. The REC has a negative Net Present Value (NPV) after 25 years of operation and lacks financial attractiveness. A positive NPV is only possible by using the cost savings from prosumership to recoup the investments faster. RECs are a promising mode of citizen participation in the energy transition; however, for their application in Germany, together with the currently missing regulatory allowance of sharing energy between small-scale parties over a public grid, dedicated subsidies, one-time grants or price support for operators are needed.

The energy efficiency and sustainability of an anaerobic green gas production pathway was evaluated, taking into account five biomass feedstocks, optimization of the green gas production pathway, replacement of current waste management pathways by mitigation, and transport of the feedstocks. Sustainability is expressed by three main factors: efficiency in (Process) Energy Returned On Invested (P)EROI, carbon footprint in Global Warming Potential GWP(100), and environmental impact in EcoPoints. The green gas production pathway operates on a mass fraction of 50% feedstock with 50% manure. The sustainability of the analyzed feedstocks differs substantially, favoring biomass waste flows over, the specially cultivated energy crop, maize. The use of optimization, in the shape of internal energy production, green gas powered trucks, and mitigation can significantly improve the sustainability for all feedstocks, but favors waste materials. Results indicate a possible improvement from an average (P) EROI for all feedstocks of 2.3 up to an average of 7.0 GJ/GJ The carbon footprint can potentially be reduced from an average of 40 down to 18 kgCO(2)eq/GJ. The environmental impact can potentially be reduced from an average of 5.6 down to 1.8 Pt/GJ. Internal energy production proved to be the most effective optimization. However, the use of optimization aforementioned will result in les green gas injected into the gas grid as it is partially consumed internally. Overall, the feedstock straw was the most energy efficient, where the feedstock harvest remains proved to be the most environmentally sustainable. Furthermore, transport distances of all feedstocks should not exceed 150 km or emissions and environmental impacts will surpass those of natural gas, used as a reference. Using green gas as a fuel can increase the acceptable transportation range to over 300 km. Within the context aforementioned and from an energy efficiency and sustainable point of view, the anaerobic digestion process should be utilized for processing locally available waste feedstocks with the added advantage of producing energy, which should first be used internally for powering the green gas production process. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Organic wastes like cooking-waste, farm-waste and manure have detrimental effect on the environment, health and hygiene of people. Within India there are possibilities to manage the available biomass in an efficient way, which can bring environmental, health and economic benefits. Through anaerobic digestion, biomass can be converted into biogas and digestate, which can be used as renewable energy source and fertilizer respectively. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how to use the available biomass and, thus, its products in a beneficial way. This leads to the main question: How to fit biogas production within the existing energy infrastructure of India? Our approach involves modelling biogas chains from production to consumption and then analyse several different options. Within the Flexigas project a flexible BioGas simulator is being created, which is capable of simulating biogas production and consumption process. The simulator takes into account the location and availability of biomass, different biomass and biogas transport, anaerobic digesters, biogas upgraders and various cost involved in the biogas production process. A multi-touch User Interface is used for simulation control and result visualization. Results from the simulator shows how feasible it is to set up the biogas chains, its advantages and increases knowledge on effective biomass use.

Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. However, in this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating individuals on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. This paper exemplifies an educational practice to create awareness on sustainable energy transition by playing a “serious” game, the We Energy Game. Concretely, this qualitative study aims to analyze communicational and educational aspects of the game by making use of a validated framework for serious games analysis, and to expose the opinion of players after maintaining group discussions. The analysis reveals a detailed insight of narrative elements, messages, and gameplay mechanisms, but also educative aspects to be considered by teachers if they are interested in putting the game into practice in their classes. The group discussion reveals that the game has been more successful in achieving cognitive (understanding/knowledge) and affective (emotion/interest and concern) engagement than in motivating attitudinal or behavioral engagement.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) can play an important role in achieving the renewable energy goals set within the European Union. Within this article the focus is placed on reaching the Dutch local renewable production goal set for the year 2020 with locally available biomass waste flows, avoiding intensive farming and long transport distances of biomass and energy carriers. The bio-energy yields, efficiency and environmental sustainability are analyzed for five municipalities in the northern part of the Netherlands, using three utilization pathways: green gas production, combined heat and power, and waste management. Literature has indicated that there is sufficient bio-energy potential in local waste streams to reach the aforementioned goal. However, the average useful energy finally produced by the AD production pathway is significantly lower, often due to poor quality biomass and difficult harvesting conditions. Furthermore, of the potential bio-energy input in the three utilization pathways considered in this article, on average: 73% can be extracted as green gas; 57% as heat and power; and 44% as green gas in the waste management pathway. This demonstrates that the Dutch renewable production goal cannot be reached. The green gas utilization pathway is preferable for reaching production goals as it retains the highest amount of energy from the feedstock. However, environmental sustainability favors the waste management pathway as it has a higher overall efficiency, and lower emissions and environmental impacts. The main lessons drawn from the aforementioned are twofold: there is a substantial gap between bio-energy potential and net energy gain; there is also a gap between top–down regulation and actual emission reduction and sustainability. Therefore, a full life cycle-based understanding of the absolute energy and environmental impact of biogas production and utilization pathways is required to help governments to develop optimal policies serving a broad set of sustainable objectives. Well-founded ideas and decisions are needed on how best to utilize the limited biomass availability most effectively and sustainably in the near and far future, as biogas can play a supportive role for integrating other renewable sources into local decentralized energy systems as a flexible and storable energy source.

The energy community movement has grown considerably over the past ten years. Energy communities are also expanding their activities. However, room for new energy projects is limited because of grid congestion. Therefore, citizen energy communities (CECs) are looking for ways to reduce the pressure on the grid. Against this background we ask what new roles renewable energy communities can play in grid governance. What opportunities are available to store produced electricity or to balance electricity on a neighborhood level? Are these solutions economically and technically feasible? Our article draws on a recent research project on innovative community energy services in the Netherlands. In three case studies, we investigated local solutions to balance energy production and consumption. We organized workshops and webinars for CECs and carried out interviews and technical studies. Theoretically, we use Social Movement Theory (SMT) to understand the community energy movement. Furthermore, we employ Large Technical Systems (LTS) theories about the lifecycle of infrastructures. We investigated the technical, organizational, and economic aspects of these solutions, as well as skills and knowledge. We conclude that the community energy movement is expanding its activities to new functions in the energy system, but economic feasibility is not yet within reach.

AbstractWithin this paper, biomass supply chains, with different shares of biomass co-combustion in coal fired power plants, are analysed on energy efficiency, energy consumption, renewable energy production, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and compared with the performance of a 100% coal supply chain scenario, for a Dutch situation. The 60% biomass co-combustion supply chain scenarios show possibilities to reduce emissions up to 48%. The low co-combustion levels are effective toreduce GHG emissions, but the margins are small. Currently co-combustion of pellets is the norm. Co-combustion of combined torrefaction and pelleting (TOP) shows the best results, but is also the most speculative.The indicators from the renewable energy directive cannot be aligned. When biomass is regarded as scarce, co-combustion of small shares or no co-combustion is the best option from an energy perspective. When biomass is regarded as abundant, co-combustion of large shares is the best option from a GHG reduction perspective.

During the opening of the Hanze Energy Transition Centre or EnTranCe posters were on display for the King and for the public. These posters where accompanied by the researchers to explain their research in more detail if questions did arise.

To avoid energy scarcity as well as climate change, a transition towards a sustainable society must be initiated. Within this context, governmental bodies and/or companies often note sustainability as an end goal, for instance as a green circular economy. However, if sustainability cannot be clearly defined as an end goal or measured uniformly and transparently, then the direction and progress towards this goal can only be roughly followed. A clear understanding of and a transparent, uniform measuring technique for sustainability are hence required for sustainable and circular (renewable) energy production pathways (REPPs), as society is asking for an integrated and understandable overview of the decision-making and planning process towards a future sustainable energy system. Therefore, within this dissertation, a new approach is proposed for measuring and optimizing the sustainability of REPPs; it is useful for the analysis, comparison, and optimization of REPP systems on all elements of sustainability. The new approach is applied and tested on a case based on farm-scale, anaerobic digestion (AD), biogas production pathways.

Abstract written for an poster presentation at the EBA conference in Alkmaar. The flexibility of biogas makes it a very capable load balancer within decentralized smart energy systems. However, within this context the sustainability of biogas production is not fully understood. What is needed is a tool for analyzing the ustainability of biogas production pathways. The main goal, of this research is to design a transparent flexible planning tool capable determining the sustainability of decentralized biogas production chains. This insight will help in designing a tailor-made biogas production chain for a specific geographic location, increasing the effectiveness and sustainability of biogas as a renewable resource.