• Energy Research

This dataset underpins the report provided to the project "Analysis of the water-power nexus in the North, Eastern and Central African Power Pools" The report provides insights into the balance between energy supply and demand, power generation, total system costs, water consumption and withdrawal as well as carbon dioxide emissions for the North, Eastern and Central African power pools.

The ongoing climate change, together with the global increase in energy consumption and unpredictable fossil fuel prices have been the main drivers for the implementation of power exchange, market coupling, energy efficiency measures and larger use of renewable energy. All these targets bring up the need for the development of new modelling frameworks and governance systems that will be based on competitive, secure and sustainable national action plans. For this purpose, the Dispa-SET model has been applied to six countries in the Western Balkans region. In the first scenario, the model has been validated for the year 2010. The second scenario has been developed according to the targets from national energy strategies for the years 2020 and 2030, while the third scenario has been developed with the purpose of determining the maximum share of renewable energy sources in the regional power mix. Simulation results indicate that the integration of additional wind and solar capacities, compared to the short and long-term national strategies for the years 2020 and 2030, can be achieved without compromising the stability of the system.

Energy is vital to reduce poverty and improve social and economic development. For more than a century, modern economies have based their growth on fossil fuels, which has led to global warming, environmental pollution, and social problems. In accordance with the Paris Agreement (2015), governments have committed to evaluating their energy systems to seek appropriate solutions to support their decarbonization and keep global warming well below 2°C. In order to achieve this objective, developing countries are making considerable efforts, among which is considered a shift to the use of renewable energy sources to satisfy their growing demand. Despite the current development and planning for the sector, there is room for improvement within the long-term planning and evaluation of energy systems. This paper analyses the difference between fossil-based and renewable-based growth in terms of economics, technical and environmental effects in Bolivia. To do so, all the country's energy sectors, including electricity, heat, and mobility, are covered and optimized through the open-source energy system modeling framework EnergyScope. Results showed a sustainable energy scenario in 2035, which accounted for 66% of renewable share and 44.64 €/tCO2-eq. related to a compensation value for the difference with the business-as-usual scenario based on future government plans. This work demonstrated that a Bolivian energy system with a high share of renewable resources is possible, leading to energy sovereignty addressing climate change.

Abstract The operation and economic profitability of modern energy systems is constrained by the availability of renewable energy and water resources. Lower water availability due to climate change, higher demand and increased water consumption for non-energy and energy needs may cause problems in Africa. In most African power systems, hydropower is a dominant renewable energy resource, and interconnection capacities are usually limited or unreliable. This paper describes a new modelling framework for analysing the water-energy nexus in the African Power Pools. This framework includes soft linking between two models: the LISFLOOD model is used to generate hydrological inputs and the Dispa-SET model is used for mid-term hydrothermal coordination and optimal unit commitment and power dispatch over the whole African continent. The results show a good agreement between the model outputs and the historical values, despite data-related limitations. Furthermore, the simulations provide hourly time series of electricity generation at the plant level in a robust way. It appears that some African power pools heavily rely on the availability of freshwater resources, while others are less dependent. In the long term, the dependence of the power system on water resources is likely to increase to meet the increasing electricity demand in Africa.

District heating plays a crucial role in future energy systems due to its beneficial impacts on the overall flexibility and efficiency of the energy system as a whole. In order to fully utilize its benefits, the sizing and operation of said systems needs to be optimized. This is a computationally difficult task due to a large number of parameters that need to be considered and calculated. Another issue is a need for long optimization horizons of at least one year, in order to capture seasonal, and a small time step of 1 h or less, to capture intraday variations. The goal of this work has been the development and demonstration of an optimization model capable of handling both the sizing and the operation of a district heating system based on a heat only boiler, solar thermal collectors, electric heaters, heat pumps and thermal energy storage units while considering building refurbishment. The model has been implemented on nine scenarios. The results of the analysis have demonstrated the economic and environmental benefits of the utilization of highly efficient and renewable energy sources in the proposed system.

This work examines the role of centralised cogeneration plants as one of the potential pathways of a future decarbonised energy system. Even in this context, thermal power plants will still exist and the utilisation of their excess heat via district heating networks can assist the decarbonisation of the built environment. In particular, the potential of existing thermal power plants to operate as combined heat and power (CHP) plants is assessed and their impact on the power system quantified. To do so, the European heat demand for the built environment is described, focused on the heat demand supplied with fossil fuels, and the European power sector is discussed. Then, a power system model (Dispa-SET) is used to evaluate this coupling pathway in terms of operating costs, efficiencies and associated CO2 emissions. The analysis is developed for the current and future European power system. Results show that the conversion of thermal into CHP plants increases the efficiency and reduces both the operating costs and the environmental impact of the energy system. Not only that, it also offers alternative flexibility options when coupled with thermal storage. Still, large investments regarding the deployment of thermal networks are required to leverage the full CHP potential.

Abstract Background Local biomass potential in Southeastern European countries is relatively high. Nevertheless, biomass residues such as wood leftovers, straw and energy crops are often not properly managed or inefficiently utilised for energy purposes in individual house heating or domestic hot water preparation. This is more relevant in rural areas, where the utilisation of biomass resources is mainly based upon traditional technologies, has low efficiency or is carried out by using individual bases without local energy supply management. Usage of biomass residues in combination with other renewable energy sources is in agreement with the targets of the EU’s Energy and Climate Goals and promotes rural development and a circular economy. Methods For this purpose, local heating and domestic hot water preparation demands, as well as the available biomass potentials, were analysed and mapped by using a geographic information system (GIS). A model for analysing the optimal operation of the district heating boiler with a relatively high share of solar energy, which is backed up by either a short- or long-term heat storage, was developed. The model takes the supply and the return temperatures from the DH network into account and decides whether the excess of solar heat produced by the prosumers can be delivered into the network. This reduces heat overproduction and enables a smooth and uninterrupted operation of the system. Such configuration would benefit both the DH Company and the prosumers. The DH Company would have the opportunity to buy cheaper excess heat from the prosumers rather than to start its own and relatively slow biomass boiler. Results In this paper, several scenarios are proposed for the Romanian village Ghelinta. The target village is characterised by a small-scale biomass district heating boiler with thermal storage and prosumers with either solar thermal collectors or locally installed heat pumps. Integration of seasonal thermal storage and local prosumers can smooth out the biomass district heating boiler operation and bring additional socio-economic benefits for the bioenergy village communities. This could be the first step towards the establishment of a micro-scale thermal energy market. Conclusions Analysis has proven that the proposed system configuration is socio-technically feasible, even for micro-scale systems, as apparent in the Romanian target village Ghelinta. The main objective of this research is to analyse the implementation of a small-scale biomass and renewable energy-based district heating system and to prove the concept of bioenergy villages from a technical and economical perspective. Furthermore, the role of residential household prosumers has been analysed. Based on outcomes, the transferability of the results is also discussed, while several suggestions for stakeholders who implement such projects were formulated for future research as well.