• Energy Research

The renewable energy policies in the European Union have already led to a significant progress; the energy mix should further change until 2020. Italy is planning to meet the 2020 targets on renewable energies also thanks to a relevant paradigm shift in renewable energy exploitation. Indeed, in 2005 the sector where RES were more present in Italy was electricity production with 203 PJ of renewable origin, while in the heating and cooling sector renewable energy penetration was limited to 80 PJ. On the contrary, in 2020 heating and cooling is expected to absorb the highest amount of renewable energy (438 PJ) with renewable electricity expected to count for 356 PJ. Bioenergy, a renewable energy resource particularly suitable for electricity, heating & cooling and in transport, will be at the core of this sectorial shift in renewable energy production and use and is expected to become the dominant form of RES before 2020. The paper makes a detailed analysis of the recent developments and expected evolution of the Italian energy mix in next decade. It provides an overview of the Italian bioenergy sector in comparison with other Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and with leading countries in the European Union with a special focus on the production, exploitation and potentials on the basis of the analysis of the Italian National Renewable Action Plan. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

In the frame of the European Union energy climate package Slovenia set ambitious target by 2020 to achieve 25% renewable energy in gross final energy demand. According to the new National Renewable Energy Action Plan Slovenia would play an active role in the development and promotion of the new technologies and solutions, which would enable wider usage of the renewable energy sources in industry, public, residential and transport sectors. Within this paper the most important challenges from the Slovenian National Renewable Energy Action Plan, including projection of the electricity production and the future development of the renewable energy sector in Slovenia are presented.

Wind and solar energy are expected to play a major role in the current decade to help Europe reaching the renewable energy penetration targets fixed by Directive 2009/28/EC. However, it is difficult to predict the actual production profiles of wind and solar energy as they depend heavily on variable meteorological features of solar radiation and wind speed. In an ideal system, wind and solar electricity are both injected in a fast reacting grid instantaneously matching supply and demand. In such a system wind and solar electricity production profiles should complement each other as much as possible in order to minimise the need of storage and additional capacity. In the present paper the complementarity of wind and solar resources is assessed for a test year in Italy.To achieve this goal we employ data at high spatial and temporal resolution data for both solar radiation and wind speed in Italy obtained from running two state of the art models (PVGIS and MINNI). Hourly profiles for solar and wind energy produced are compared in each 4×4km2 grid cell in Italy for 2005, and hourly, daily and monthly correlation coefficients are computed in order to assess the local complementarity of the two resources. A Monte Carlo approach is also developed to estimate how large-scale wind and solar energy productions could be potentially involved to complement each other in a scenario with up to 100 production sites across Italy. The results show how local complementarity can be very interesting with monthly correlation coefficients reaching values lower than-0.8 in several areas. Large-scale complementarity is also relevant with nation-wide monthly correlation coefficients showing values between-0.65 and-0.6. These model results indicate that in this sample year of 2005, wind and solar energy potential production have shown complementary time behaviour complementary, favourably supporting their integration in the energy system. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

This paper presents an energy outlook for Cyprus up to the year 2020, quantifying the energy savings that can be attained depending on the degree of implementation of energy efficiency policies and the use of natural gas in power generation. It turns out that the recent economic crisis does not seem to hinder progress towards a more energy efficient economy, thanks to the increasingly stringent energy efficiency regulations for buildings foreseen in EU legislation. Proactive implementation of all energy efficiency measures promoted by EU policies, and a stronger commitment towards improving the energy performance of the transport sector, can lead to a substantial improvement in national energy productivity. In view of the future EU-wide commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a decisive adoption of energy efficiency policies will bring about a significant structural shift in the country’s energy outlook, which will probably pass the cost-effectiveness test as well.

It is the objective of this paper to present the path which the wind farm projects have undergone in Croatia from their introduction and expansion since the year 2007 up to the today's date when their development is temporarily stayed. The paper first describes the political and legal framework for renewable energy sources in Croatia, and specifically for wind power plants, as well as the current status of investment in building of wind farms in Croatia. The paper further analyses why the Croatian system of promotion of eligible producers has proven to attract investment, albeit unsustainable for a longer period of time, and which regulatory measures have later contributed to the suspension of wind farm investment in 2014. Legal and factual consequences of such suspension are discussed at the end of the paper, as well as some potential new business models for further exploitation of wind energy in Croatia.

The EU has assumed objectives for energy sustainability and the fight against climate change. In this regard, the generation of biogas allows contributions to the 2020 established targets. The EU is leader in the production of biogas, representing 60% of total global production in 2011. The estimates of the contribution of biogas to electricity generation for 2020 in the EU-28 represent 1.5% within the total energy mix. This paper analyzes the measures implemented in the EU-28 to promote biogas, relating them to the country targets established in their National Renewable Energy Action Plans. Currently, 19 countries apply some measure of price and/or amount: 14 use Feed-in Tariffs, 6 Premium Tariffs and 1 uses tenders. A trend has been observed to reduce public financial support to promote biogas, linked to the reduction of the cost of this technology, and to the attempt to increasingly link it to the markets. However, excessive linking to the market hinders its development, putting the attainment of 2020 targets at risk. Consequently, the Feed-in Tariff or Premium Tariff systems, used in each country, must be designed in agreement with the peculiarities of the development of their markets, to be able to guarantee suitable development. Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España ECO2014-56399-R Fundación Roger Torné. Cátedra de Economía de la Energía y del Medio Ambiente. Universidad de Sevilla Premio Mensual Publicación Científica Destacada de la US. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales

AbstractThe use of renewable energy is projected to increase substantially in the European Union to reach a share of 20% in final energy consumption and 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020. The renewable energy contribution is further expected to increase to 55%–75% of gross final energy consumption in 2050. According to the latest reports, the European Union has made significant progress since 2005 and is on track to reach its 2020 renewable energy targets. This paper provides a review of the policy framework for renewable energy in the European Union and an analysis of the progress made by the use of renewable energy as well as the expected developments until 2020 and beyond. It focusses on the contribution of bioenergy, the major source among renewables in the European Union. As biomass availability is a critical issue for the bioenergy production, this paper provides an analysis of the biomass demand for reaching the 2020 targets, in relation with the expected domestic supply and biomass potential.

Coordination of policies embracing biomass use has been called for in order to speed up progress towards the European Union renewable energy and climate change goals. Policy coordination and coherence is also required if the many complex and diverse issues constraining sustainable bioenergy development are to be addressed. To contribute to meeting such needs this doctoral thesis provides insights into how to pursue more coherent and sustainable biomass policy interventions. The work explores planning documents and processes relevant to biomass use for energy at both national and regional levels in the EU. The research also investigates the interaction between policy instruments and their impact on biomass use. This thesis finds that current biomass-to-energy planning is insufficient to deliver coherent, sustainable bioenergy development. The work proposes an approach that can help achieve sound policy and planning processes. This requires adherence to structure, embracing adaptation and continuous improvement, looking beyond a singular focus on energy use, and assessment of policy instrument interactions within the planning framework. Specific actions to overcome barriers in planning processes are delineated. Among other things, these include political and stakeholder commitment to processes that are continuously updated and evaluated, and recognition of regional directions of work in higher level policy-making. The work shows that significant improvements to coordination of, and by, planning can be implemented. Such improvements would help overcome barriers constraining bioenergy progress and consequently assist biomass policy and planning to achieve their intended outcomes.

The European Union has set ambitious targets of raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources from 20% by 2020 to 27% by 2030. The aim of this paper is to assess the role of woody biomass in renewable energy as gross final energy consumption in the European Union (the EU-28). The paper identifies leading and lagging countries in biomass development by focusing on their current biomass use and forecasts future perspectives. The research compares and evaluates the role of biomass in renewable energy in the EU-28 focusing on countries' potential resources and policy support. The study shows that all countries are making efforts to reach the 20% target in 2020 and exhibit a trend of increasing renewable energy as gross final energy consumption towards the new target of 2030. Solid biomass plays an important role in reaching the EU's renewable energy targets. The majority of the EU-28 countries are close to reaching their national renewable energy targets and show a very attractive biomass development. Unless energy consumption decreases however, some member states will face serious problems in reaching their renewable energy target in 2020. Following our analysis, the largest problems occur in those MS having a relative high-energy consumption pattern: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is unlikely that they can comply with expected renewable energy demand, unless they mobilize more woody biomass from their available domestic potential (France, Germany) or considerably increase their woody biomass imports (mostly wood pellets) from elsewhere (United Kingdom).