3b: Intro to the Energy Transition

Low carbon technologies (infrastructure)

Misha Velthuis

m.velthuis@uva.nl

Thursday 19 Sept 2024

Content

Low carbon technologies:

wind

solar

hydro

Challenges to the infrastructure:

supply

demand

Renewables

Electrification

Share of electricity in total final energy consumption

Most of new electricity is green…

"Renewables are set to account for over 90% of global electricity capacity expansion over the forecast period."

But most electricity is still dirty

An EV discussion

Some energy uses are extra challenging to electrify

Wind

Wind power capacity trend

Wind power capacity trend per country

Wind: global share + trend

Btw… Energy consumption vs electricity production

Wind: global distribution share + trend

Primary energy consumption

Wind turbine development

The power of the wind

\[P_{wind} = 0.5 \rho v^3\]

P	power (W)
ρ	density of air (kg/m³)
v	wind velocity (m/s)

Capturing the power of the wind: altitude

Capturing the power of the wind: blade size

\[P_{turbine} = \nu A P_{wind}\]

ν	turbine efficiency
A	wind mill area perpendicular to the wind

Turbine trends

Capturing the power of the wind: at sea 1

Capturing the power of the wind: at sea 2

Higher up?

Onshore wind: very low costs

Solar

Solar PV capacity trend

Compare to wind

Solar PV capacity per country

Solar: global share + trend

Electricity production

Capacity vs generation

"The sun is useless. I mean, it doesn't shine at night, which is actually when you need it the most."

Btw: capacity factor of coal going down

Capacity factor of coal power plants in the United States from 2010 to 2021

Solar: global distribution share + trend

Primary energy consumption

Land needed to satisfy Dutch electricity demand?

Total radiation: 1365 W/m²
Day/night, seasons, clouds: 100 W/m² (for the Netherlands)
100 W.m^-2 = 175 kWh.m^-2.yr^-1
Efficiency solar panel: 20% (Kutscher et al. p. 35)

average_irradiation = 175 # W.m-2.yr-1
efficiency_solar_panel = 0.2
dutch_electricity_demand = 121 * 10**9 #kWh/year
required_land = dutch_electricity_demand/average_irradiation #m2
root_required_land = required_land**0.5
print(root_required_land)

26295 meters

26 km by 26 km

Land needed to satisfy Dutch electricity demand?

But electricity is only 17.8% of Dutch energy consumption.

Then again #1: use same space?

Then again #2: what about fossil fuels?

Costs: Swanson's law

Even more?

Price decrease

Price increase?

This is also very much about international competition over the resources necessary for the energy transition.

See e.g. this article on the more recent price increase (specifically about the price rise in the US):

"Wind and solar projects are facing delays because of shortages of raw materials, bottlenecks in international shipping and a backlog of applications for grid connections with regional grid operators, the report said."
"Developers also are having to deal with more challenges to their obtaining state and local building permits, sometimes in the form of counties passing ordinances restricting new projects."
"Federal policy is another factor. In 2018, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on imported solar cells and panels, and the U.S. International Trade Commission is recommending that the Biden administration extend the tariffs for an additional four years."
Notice btw … … how this graph shows LCOE (instead of capital costs). … how in (normal) gas and coal there have not been any LCOE reductions.

Hydro

Hydro power electricity generation

Hydro power capacity + trend

Compare to wind

Hydro is biggest renewable

Hydro: global distribution share + trend

Three gorges dam

Highly reliable

Storage capacity

Dispatchable/ Turn off-and-turn-on-able (?)

Geographic availability?

Environmental and social costs?

Narmada dam

Other renewables

Limited potential

Concentrated solar power

Infrastructure

Why aren't we only pursuing wind energy?

The existing electricity system

Two basic realities:

Supply and demand have to match

Demand fluctuates

Fluctuating demand

Dispatchable electricity

Coal	Not that dispatchable
Nuclear	Not that dispatchable
Natural gas	Dispatchable
Hydropwer	Dispatchable

Baseload + peaker

The future electricity system

Two basic realities:

Supply and demand have to match

But both demand and supply fluctuate

Fluctuating supply

Quote Jevons

Sure …

And sure …

And yes …

But the mismatch remains

Supply and demand have to match

But both supply and demand fluctuate

No coal or nuclear to provide base-load?

No gas fired back-ups?

Two approaches

Adjust supply

Adjust demand

Adjust supply

We need backups to …

… be powered up fast enough

… to a sufficient wattage

… for long enough

We need backups to …

… be powered up fast enough (3.7 GW/h)

… to a sufficient wattage (10 GW)

… for long enough (5 days (10*24*5=1200 GWh))

Pumped storage: the idea

Pumped storage: not necessarily new

Since 1958