Renewable Energy and Transport

1
Renewable Energy and Transport

• Energy Issues A Challenge for Physics
• Helsinki 31 August 2007
• Presentation by
• Hans Larsen
• Risø National Laboratory
• Technical University of Denmark

2
Energy solutions for sustainable development

• The world is facing major challenges
• in providing energy services to meet the future
  needs of the world and in particular the growing
  needs of the developing countries. Today 1.6
  billion people have no access to modern energy
• in the need to provide energy services that take
  account of economic growth, security of supply
  and sustainability, including the expected future
  Kyoto Protocol targets for significant reductions
  in CO2 emissions.

3
The present situation

• Today the world's energy system is based mainly
  on fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, which
  supply around 80 of our primary energy
• Only around 0.5 of primary comes from new
  renewable sources such as wind and solar
• The world will continue to depend on fossil fuel
  for several decades

4
Global primary production of energy
5
World primary energy demand till 2030 reference
scenario
6
World Energy Outlook 2006
ALTERNATIVE POLICY SCENARIO

• Efficiency improvements
• Nuclear power
• Renewable energy, including bio-fuels
• This might reduce energy demand in 2030 by 10
• This can be achieved sustaining a sound
  economical development

7
Decentralising

• The coming decades will bring big changes in the
  energy systems throughout the world
• Central power plants producing electricity and
  maybe heat will loose their monopoly
• The energy systems will be composed of a
  combination of central units and a variety of
  distributed units such as renewable energy
  technologies or fuel cells.
• Closer link between supply and end-use
• Increased energy trade across national borders

8
Future distributed energy systems are
characterised by

• Close communication between production units
• There is a link between supply and end-use
  information and communication technology
• On-line pricing
• About 20 of global primary energy is currently
  used for transport, and this fraction is
  increasing in the future

9
In future distributed energy systems

• Energy carriers such as hydrogen and ethanol may
  become important interface for renewable energy
  sources to mobile users
• There will be closer links between electricity,
  heat and other energy carriers

10
New sustainable energy supply technologies

• Wind energy
• Photovoltaics
• Bio fuels for transport
• Hydrogen and fuel cells

11
Wind energy
Cost of energy from wind and fossil fuels
Development of wind turbines
12
(No Transcript)
13
Growth rates in the top-10 markets
14
Photovoltaics

• The market for photovoltaic's has grown at an
  average of more than 30 annually over the last
  10 years
• Crystalline silicon remains the standard PV
  technology with a market share above 90
• Although efficiencies of solar cells continue to
  rise, high cost remains the principal barrier to
  PV as a large scale energy producers
• Polymer solar cells may succeed where silicon has
  failed because they are cheap to make

15
Experience curve for PV with prices until 2016
16
Hydrogen and fuel cells

• Solid Oxide Fuel cells
• Electrolysis and other hydrogen technologies
• De-central and distributed energy system
• Enhances flexibility in the energy system

17
Why Hydrogen?

• Opportunity for a sustainable energy system
• Security of supply
• Climate change
• Alternative fuel for the transport sector
• New link between transport and other parts of the
  energy sector

18
Hydrogen is valuable today

• Energy carrier not energy source
• Manufactured on the basis of natural gas
• Utilized in refineries and chemical industry
• The hydrogen economy is technically feasible
  the decisive factor is cost

19
Driving forces

• Increased use of renewable energy in the
  transport sector
• Use in the transport sector can reduce local and
  global pollution
• The robustness and flexibility of the energy
  system will be increased

20
Hydrogen could be the missing link

• Hydrogen could link the power system to the
  transport sector, increasing the flexibility and
  robustness of the total energy system
• The choice of hydrogen production technology and
  energy source determines the sustainability of
  the hydrogen economy

21
Perspectives for modern bioenergy

• Supply systems - harvest, collection, handling
  and storage is a huge technical challenge for
  modern bioenergy
• Biomass is a local and bulky resource
• Costs for transportation could be a barrier for
  extended use of bioenergy
• The solution is to develop technologies for local
  use for converting the bulky raw materials to
  energy dense fuel in solid, liquid or gas form

22
Perspectives for modern bioenergy

• In principle modern bioenergy could cover the
  total energy demand of the world
• In practice, the technical and economical
  potential is much lower
• The estimated yearly potential for bioenergy is
• theoretically 2900 EJ
• technically and economically 270 EJ
• The actual use is 55 EJ

23
Bio fuels

• Production of bio ethanol for the transport
  sector
• 2nd generation technology utilising surplus
  biomass and waste material

24
Technical potential and use of biomass
25
Time scale from break through to commercial
contribution
26
Future distributed energy systems are
characterised by

• Close communication between production units
• There is a link between supply and end-use
  information and communication technology
• On-line pricing
• About 20 of global primary energy is currently
  used for transport, and this fraction is
  increasing in the future

27
Summary and conclusions

• Global energy and environmental challenges
  require new long-term solutions

• The coming decades will bring big changes in the
  energy systems throughout the world
• Linking the transport sector to the rest of the
  system though hydrogen, bio fuels and electricity
• Increased robustness through decentralised
  renewable energy
• More research and demonstration projects are
  needed
• THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION