• Energy Research
• engineering and technology close
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According to the Paris Agreement, the European energy system transition is essential to achieve GHG emission reduction targets set by the EU and limit the growth of global temperatures. Investigating the role of emerging mitigation technologies and their uncertainties together with the different GHG reduction targets is crucial to realize this transition. This study analyzes the uncertainties of electric vehicles' learning paths and biomass availability for biofuels, considering policy uncertainties. Since these technologies are considered possible alternatives to conventional fuels to reduce CO2 emissions in transport, it is critical to understand their future role and the possible impact of their uncertainties during the European energy system design in case of different climate ambitions. Stochastic modeling is applied to analyze associated uncertainties as an additional approach to a traditional sensitivity analysis. Our results show that decarbonization of car transport is prioritized, and electric cars appear as no-regret options in the sector's design during the energy transition. Therefore, early deployments of EVs are essential to hedge the given uncertainties independent of the hedging period's length. Longer resolution time reduces the deployment of electric vehicles in the recourse strategies compared to having a shorter one due to a delay in the cost reductions. This decline becomes more evident with the stochastic analysis. The policy uncertainty of decarbonization targets has the highest impact on the studied uncertainties on the development of the transport sector. The transport sector can show faster adjustments considering the technology portfolio's shorter lifetime. Thanks to this adjustment, the sector depicts higher decarbonization in the hedging as well as in the recourse strategies.

Abstract This paper presents a study of the combined influence of battery models and sizing strategy for hybrid and battery-based electric vehicles. In particular, the aim is to find the number of battery (and supercapacitor) cells to propel a light vehicle to run two different standard driving cycles. Three equivalent circuit models are considered to simulate the battery electrical performance: linear static, non-linear static and non-linear with first-order dynamics. When dimensioning a battery-based vehicle, less complex models may lead to a solution with more battery cells and higher costs. Despite the same tendency, when a hybrid vehicle is taken into account, the influence of the battery models is dependent on the sizing strategy. In this work, two sizing strategies are evaluated: dynamic programming and filter-based. For the latter, the complexity of the battery model has a clear influence on the result of the sizing problem. On the other hand, a modest influence is observed when a dynamic programming strategy is followed.

Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar‐geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of a range of scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.

AbstractThe 2011 White Paper on Transport of the European Commission spells out a series of targets for 2030 and 2050. One of the 10 targets is explicitly related to urban transport and stipulates: “Halve the use of ‘conventionally fuelled’ cars in urban transport by 2030; phase them out in cities by 2050. Achieve essentially CO2-free city logistics in major urban centres by 2030.”With this paper we present and discuss a roadmap that deals with the question who needs to do what by when in order to reach the White Paper goal for urban transport. The “stakeholder-driven” roadmap was developed in the FP7 project TRANSFORuM. The paper will present the key findings and the suggested action steps identified in the roadmap. The paper will also exemplify three possible urban transformation pathways towards the urban target. This approach emerged from stakeholder consultations which highlighted the need to take into account the widely differing conditions among European cities.

Electric vehicle charging stresses distribution grids significantly with high penetrations of electric vehicles. This will lead to grid reinforcement works in several distribution grids. Battery storage is a possible solution to bypass times of grid reinforcement due to electric vehicle charging. In this paper, different operation strategies for such a battery storage are tested at first in simulations. The main difference between the strategies is the necessary input data. Following the simulations, selected strategies are tested in reality in the project ”Netzlabor E-Mobility-Allee”. It is proved that battery storage is a functioning possibility to bypass times of grid reinforcement.

The rising number of electric vehicles comes along with an increasing demand for Li-Ion batteries. As resources such as lithium are valuable it is economically worthwhile to recycle EV batteries. One of the first steps of every battery recycling process is the disassembly, which can be a quite time and cost consuming process and hence has to be planned properly. Using the battery of the hybrid car Audi Q5 as a case study, a planning approach for the disassembly will be discussed in this paper. Therefore, disassembly sequences will be derived from a priority matrix and a disassembly graph will be drawn up. Finally, recommendations for the design of the disassembly system and work stations will be given.