• Energy Research
• NL close
• FI close
• English close

The integration of Variable Renewable Energy Sources (VRES) creates challenges for meeting load demand. The lack of on-demand power generation of these VRES effectively threatens energy security. Therefore, storage facilities, especially hydrogen, have been broadly researched for potential implementation in our energy system, enabling on-demand power "generation". This thesis adds to this research by providing a framework on how VRES and long-term storage technologies can be most optimally utilized to ensure weekly or monthly energy security. This framework is explicitly applied to the Netherlands and reviews the opportunities of a VRES dominated future energy system. The framework consists of a VRES generation model and load model and identifies the optimal load coverage using single- and multi-objective genetic algorithms. The VRES generation model is designed for a weekly and monthly timeframe by using 31 years of available weather data (1988-2018), specifically average wind speeds and solar irradiance, for a number of locations in the Netherlands. Using the available weather data, power generation per MW of onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar PV are calculated. Subsequently, this calculated VRES power generation is compared to available real-world VRES power generation data and a correction factor is determined. Applying the correction factor to the more extensive weather data set allows to effectively create a VRES power generation model, based on the weather circumstances as in these 31 years. Additionally, a weekly and monthly 31-year load profile is determined, using available data for load demand in the Netherlands. Thereafter, both a single and multi-objective algorithm is tasked to provide load coverage in two main scenarios at minimum cost. First, load coverage is achieved exclusively utilizing VRES capacity. Secondly, a variety of long-term storage facilities are introduced in combination with VRES capacity to acquire energy security. Furthermore, these two methods for achieving energy security ...

Metadata only record Within the last thirty years in the West African Sahel, farmers have started to implement agroenvironmental practices which have allowed them to improve the soil quality and increase crop yields. Using two examples of land rehabilitation in Africa, this paper examines the technical and institutional innovations and their impacts on the ability to meet food demand for the growing population. Agroenvironmental techniques incorporate trees into the agricultural landscape, which improves water retention in the soil, increases the supply of nutrients, reduces wind erosion, and provides other marketable tree products. This large-scale effort has created income opportunities for farmers, benefited women, and increased food supply for many African families.

Rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the air increase the global temperature since the industrial revolution. Today, there exists a great need to limit global warming, and an energy transition is vital to do so. With the upcoming changes in our energy system, bioenergy is widely discussed, resulting in a heated debate on including or excluding bioenergy in the energy transition. This study aims to identify the least controversial feedstocks out of 40 different ones and if they will help to resolve the controversies around bioenergy. Before a feedstock is deemed controversial, a background of bioenergy was established to see what role bioenergy has in today's energy system and in the future. A literature analysis identifies the role of bioenergy today. Using the 'IAMC 1.5C Scenario Explorer' hosted by IIASA the role in the future is identified. To determine the least controversial feedstocks, a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is performed. The PROMETHEE II method is used to perform the MCDA and the entropy weight method for weighting the criteria. The ranking and weighting make use of MATLAB. Since the aim is to classify feedstocks as the least controversial, the criteria are deduced from a literature analysis and represent the controversies of bioenergy. The first part of the report indicates a significant role in today's renewable energy system and a shift towards more modern bioenergy implementations like biofuels and bio-electricity. According to the scenario analysis, for the five different shared socio-economic pathways, bioenergy will be used. Besides the identification of a clear use of bioenergy in the future energy system, the scenario analysis of TFE of bioenergy indicated a shift towards modern bioenergy use. It was observed that the solid biomass use reduced and a strong increase in liquid biofuels in the transport sector will happen. These findings are in line with the predictions made by the IPCC. Also, this is in accordance with the observed growth rates and development trends found for ...

Numerous LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) import terminals are under construction to fulfil the growing demand for energy carriers. After storage in tanks, the LNG needs to be heated and evaporated, also called ‘regasified’, to the natural gas needed in households and industry. Several options exist for providing the required heat. In the interest of sustainable development it is important to decide carefully upon which technology to apply for LNG evaporation. In this research, three options for LNG evaporation have been investigated: using the waste heat from a power plant, integrating the LNG terminal with an air separation unit and an oxy-fuel power plant, and combining the evaporation process with an Organic Rankine Cycle to produce electricity. The research consisted of an environmental life cycle assessment, calculation the life cycle costs, conducting a social life cycle assessment and determining the cumulative exergy extracted from the natural environment (CEENE). The option in which the LNG terminal is integrated with an air separation unit and an oxy-fuel coal power plant appeared to be preferable. This research is part of a study after the effects of involving exergy analysis in decisions regarding future energy supply on the environmental, economic and social aspects of its sustainability. Infrastructure Systems & Services Technology, Policy and Management

The escalating demand for green hydrogen as a sustainable energy carrier has sparked significant interest in offshore wind-to-hydrogen systems, which hold the promise of expediting the transition towards renewable energy sources. The objective of this research is to provide insight in the techno-economic feasibility of semi-centralised electrolysis in an offshore wind farm. The semi-centralised offshore wind-to-hydrogen configuration will be compared with centralised and decentralised offshore wind-to-hydrogen to potentially reduce the levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) in future wind-to-hydrogen production designs. This research was conducted in collaboration with Vattenfall, a leading player in offshore wind energy within Europe, who recognizes the potential of green hydrogen as a key driver in the ongoing energy transition. Vattenfall provided access to an in-house wind farm layout optimisation model to create optimised wind farm layouts as well as site specific data for the case study. This model and data allowed a narrowed focus on the hydrogen aspects of the wind-to-hydrogen configurations. The technical examination explores crucial elements such as the conversion of wind energy into hydrogen through electrolysis, hydrogen transmission and variances in offshore substations and hydrogen wind turbines, to understand the technical differences between the different offshore wind-to-hydrogen configurations. Additionally, by analysing the hydrogen production process and comparing the scale of hydrogen production in offshore substations or hydrogen wind turbines, the study exhibits the technical feasibility of a wind-to-hydrogen farm with numerous semi-centralised monopile hydrogen substations in comparison with wind-to-hydrogen farms consisting of a single centralised jacket hydrogen substation or decentralised hydrogen wind turbines. To enable a quantitative comparison of the different offshore wind-to-hydrogen setups in the economic analysis, the LCOH for each configuration was modelled. This process involved ...

The energy transition is said to create emerging “green windows of opportunity (GWO)” in developing countries. On the other hand, many latecomer countries remain importers and users of renewables and clean energy technologies. Renewable energy deployment projects are considered complex systems and products (CoPS) that are capital-intensive, client-driven, and complex economic activities. Previous research on catching up in CoPS has concentrated on large engineering projects, focusing on technological aspects and the role of government interventions at different developmental stages, especially the creation of domestic markets. As many latecomer countries are users of emerging renewable energy technologies, the creation of domestic markets through government interventions is considered essential for successful transitions and capability upgrading to take place. However, capability upgrading and the transition to renewable energy can also occur without the initial presence of a domestic market and strong governmental support, as demonstrated by the case of ACWA Power, a project developer in a latecomer country, in Saudi Arabia. This case shows that upgrading of organizational capabilities took place as the firm engaged in projects in the external market to deploy renewable energy, taking advantage of the GWO. The case suggests that the CoPS can be a viable pathway for catching up in the emerging renewable energy sector, enabling firms to transition and build their organizational capabilities from project-based learning when GWOs are effectively leveraged.

The EU Project AquaTerra generates knowledge about the river-soil-sediment-groundwater system and delivers scientific information of value for river basin management. In this article, the use and ignorance of scientific knowledge in decision making is explored by a theoretical review. We elaborate on the 'two-communities theory', which explains the problems of the policy-science interface by relating and comparing the different cultures, contexts, and languages of researchers and policy makers. Within AquaTerra, the EUPOL subproject examines the policy-science interface with the aim of achieving a good connection between the scientific output of the project and EU policies. We have found two major barriers, namely language and resources, as well as two types of relevant relationships: those between different research communities and those between researchers and policy makers. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

De drijvende kracht in de door de mens veroorzaakte klimaatverandering is de verandering in de stralingsbalans. Deze wordt niet alleen beinvloed door de broeikasgassen maar ook door aerosolen (fijne in lucht zwevende deeltjes). De aerosolen worden ook door de mens gemaakt, vooral via fossiele verbranding. Aerosolen kaatsen een deel van het zonlicht terug. Dit leidt tot een verminderde instraling. Het aerosol-effect van door de mens gegenereerde aerosolen werkt dus precies omgekeerd aan het 'normale' broeikaseffect van de gassen die de langgolvige aardse uitstraling tegenhouden. Door verminderde instraling warmt de aarde minder op. De invloed van de antropogene aerosolen is groot: De extra door de mens geproduceerde broeikasgassen geven een verandering in de stralingsbalans van ongeveer 2.5W m-2, volgens IPCC. De geschatte tegengestelde bijdrage van door de mens gemaakte aerosol deeltjes is, als mondiaal gemiddelde -0.8 W m-2, maar met een onzekerheid van minstens een factor twee. De onzekerheid in de verstoring van de stralingsbalans ('forcering') door aerosolen vormt momenteel een van de grootste onzekerheden in de klimaatforcering over de industriele periode.