Is this fine by the Flemish government appropriate?

As of January 2009, all new residential houses in Flanders must be audited by the Flemish Energy Agency (VEA). This is to ensure that energy use is kept within appropriate limits. Houses are rated according to their so-called E-level, which must be less than 100 to receive approval.

Minimum Efficiency Performance Standards (MEPS) like this can be a very effective tool for reaching carbon emission reductions. However, the way in which MEPS are established is crucial if they are to reach their goal in the medium and long term. A Flanders case clearly demonstrates how this idea can take a wrong turn.

Recently, the VEA (note – VEA = the Flemish Energy Agency) fined a couple in the small Flemish town of Kuurne €16,000 for having built a house with an E-level of no less than 175. The insulation of the house is according to modern practice. The main cause for the high E-level appears to be the electric accumulation heating. This is a strange conclusion, and raises questions about proportionality that merit further investigation.

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One year ago, Commissioner Piebalgs stated: “Nuclear is here to stay!“.

The trends, indeed, point in that direction: several  European countries are withdrawing their nuclear embargoes and planning nuclear power plants!

Leonardo ENERGY has interviewed Jean Van Vyve, the responsible for nuclear generation at Electrabel, discussing some limitations and advantages of nuclear Energy.

The resulting article is available here.

Concentration photovoltaics (CPV) offers one of the most promising utility-scale, renewable energy technology options. Many companies are testing their CPV products and some have already launched commercial offers.

This documentary presents interviews with some industry representatives present at ISFOC (CPV Institute in Puertollano, South of Spain).

How sustainable is electricity? 

What is the best technology to produce it?

These questions are often asked and the answers are not clear-cut.

Leonardo ENERGY has produced this eco-sheet to help clarifying the issue. The environmental burden of generating one kWh from 7 different energy sources is quantified. It shows that there is no silver bullet solution.

Much more information could be added to this document. We invite you to send us your comments.

Next week Friday (September 19), Leonardo ENERGY organises a webinar on CPV technology, where Pedro Banda and Paqui Rubio from ISFOC will give an overview of this exciting new technology and respond to any questions you may have. You can register for the webinar using the following link:

www.leonardo-energy.org/drupal/node/3584

Along with wind power, concentration photovoltaics (CPV) offers one of the most promising utility-scale, renewable energy technology options. CPV has a current system efficiency of 25% and the potential of reaching much higher efficiency. In the right locations, it could provide electricity at cost low enough to be competitive with fossil and nuclear power. Compared to other solar technologies, CPV has the advantage of modularity and very low water needs.

The webinar will introduce the promise of this new technology which could very well be the next big thing in renewables.

Improving technology, expansion off-shore, and exploring the building sector potential

The wind sector has been growing spectacularly over the past decade. However, to sustain these impressive growth figures over the next twenty years in Europe and North America, business-as-usual will not be enough. In several European countries, the number of remaining onshore sites for building new wind farms is already declining (see interview with François and Benoît Henriet, ‘Barriers for wind projects’, on this blog). Maintaining current growth will require going off-shore, or at least off the beaten track.

• Some offshore wind farms are already in operation but there is still a huge potential — if the technology can overcome some of its current teething problems (see blog post ‘How fast can we move?’)
• Further expansion of the onshore potential is possible by scaling up existing wind farms in both size and efficiency; radical new design proposals are being put forward
• Building-integrated wind turbines have both advocates and sceptics in regards to their potential to open up a completely new market

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Visit the Virtual Energy Forum and listen to interviews with senior energy executives from Marriott, Raytheon, the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as Dick Munson, author of such books as “From Edison to Enron: The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity” and “The Power Brokers.” The forum also streams keynote addresses from John Kerry, Newt Gingrich, Howard Learner and others.

These interviews have been recorded during a two day online-only event held on Tuesday, June 10th and Wednesday, June 11th, 2008. The event focused on how leading companies can adopt better energy management practices to cut cost, while at the same time adopting clean energy alternatives — presenting alternative energy technologies, policies, and best practices in a live, interactive environment.

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Date & Time: June 6, 2008 15h00 – 16h00
Speaker: Fernando Nuno, Leonardo ENERGY
Register: http://snipurl.com/bulksolar

Summary

Thin film, silicon, concentrated solar power (CSP), concentrated photovoltaics (CPV), … These are just some of the terms demonstrating that solar technologies are rapidly entering the electricity system in countries such as the United States, Spain or Australia. Furthermore, the largest improvements, which will bring generation cost closer to competitive prices are just around the corner.

This webinar is dedicated to utility scale and baseload solar technologies: CSP and CPV.

What is the status of these technologies, their improvement potential and perspectives for the future? What are the running projects and expectations in terms of market development? How is the levelized energy price expected to evolve in the near future to reach grid parity? Additionally, more practical aspects will be presented, as the conditions required by a CSP project to be viable or the keys to successfully finance the project.

After this briefing presentation, a discussion with participants will be launched on questions such as storage capabilities and system operation. Other questions from attendees are welcome to guide the discussion.

Environmental impact of the PV life-cycle

All means of electricity generation, including photovoltaic (PV) systems, create polluting emissions when the entire life-cycle is taken into account. In the case of PV systems, those emissions are concentrated in the manufacturing stage. PV manufacturing is energy intensive, resulting in the emissions that accompany the use of standard grid electricity. The energy balance of a PV system is expressed by the Energy Pay-Back Time (EPBT), which is the time it takes for the PV system to generate the amount of energy equal to that used in its production.

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ACEEE argues in a new report that Energy Efficiency must be more visible and it is easy to agree. Energy Efficiency is in most policy debates discussed as the counterbalance to more supply but in reality it is more difficult. Energy Efficiency is often foregone because of its invisibility. Which is a pity since energy efficiency is the most profitable and least risky of all investments you can make as the ACEEE report shows (see figure below).

Energy efficiency must be recognised …

The importance of energy efficiency is recognised to a growing extent not the least by use of cost-curves (supply curves for measures) that McKinsey has rediscovered (originally used by Amory Lovins and Clark Gellings in the 80’s) and elaborated for countries and sectors all over the world. These graphs show that there are a lot of measures that have negative costs (!) i.e. that they make the user better-off financially if they are undertaken. And many of these measures are based on technologies for energy efficiency.

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