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Table of Contents
1. Introduction: ........................................................................................................................................ 3 2. Integration into electrical power systems:............................................................................................ 5 3. Integration into heating and cooling networks: .................................................................................... 7 4. Integration of renewable energy into gas grids .................................................................................... 8 5. Integration of renewable energy into liquid fuels ................................................................................. 9 6. Integration of renewable energy into autonomous systems ............................................................... 10 7. End-use sectors: Strategic elements for transition pathways .............................................................. 11 7.1. Transport .................................................................................................................................... 11 7.2. Buildings and households ............................................................................................................ 12 7.3. Industry ...................................................................................................................................... 12 7.4. Agriculture, forestry and fishing .................................................................................................. 13
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1. Introduction:
In many countries, energy supply systems have evolved over decades, enabling the efficient and cost-effective distribution of electricity, gas, heat and transport energy carriers to provide useful energy services to end users. The transition to a low-carbon future that employs high shares of RE may require considerable investment in new RE technologies and infrastructure, including more flexible electricity grids, expansion of district heating and cooling schemes, distribution systems for RE-derived gases and liquid fuels, energy storage systems, novel methods of transport, and innovative distributed energy and control systems in buildings. Enhanced RE integration can lead to the provision of the full range of energy services for large and small communities in both developed and developing countries. Energy supply systems are continuously evolving, with the aim of increasing conversion technology efficiencies, reducing losses and lowering the costs of providing energy services to end users. To provide a greater share of RE heating, cooling, transport fuels and electricity may require modification of current policies, markets and existing energy supply systems over time so that they can accommodate higher rates of deployment leading to greater supplies of RE. All countries have access to some RE resources and in many parts of the world these are abundant. Some resources, such as solar and ocean energy, are widely distributed, whereas others, such as large-scale hydropower, are constrained by geographic location and hence integration options are more centralized. Some RE resources are variable and have limited predictability. Others have lower energy densities and their technical specifications differ from solid, liquid and gaseous fossil fuels. Such RE resource characteristics can constrain the ease of integration and invoke additional system costs, particularly when reaching higher shares of RE. Centralized energy systems, based mainly on fossil fuels, have evolved to provide reasonably cost-effective energy services to end users using a range of energy carriers including solid, liquid and gaseous fuels, electricity, and heat. Increasing the deployment of RE technologies requires their integration into these existing systems by overcoming the associated technical, economic, environmental and social barriers. The advent of decentralized energy systems could open up new deployment opportunities. In some regions, RE electricity systems could become the dominant future energy supply, especially if heating and transport demands are also to be met by electricity. This could be driven by parallel developments in electric vehicles, increased heating and cooling using electricity (including heat pumps), flexible demand response services (including the use of smart meters), and other innovative technologies. Prior to making any significant change in an energy supply system that involves increasing the integration of RE, a careful assessment of the RE resource availability; the suitability of existing technologies; institutional, economic and social constraints; the potential risks; and the need for related capacity building and skills development should be undertaken.
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Several mature RE technologies have already been successfully integrated into a wide range of energy supply systems, mostly at relatively low shares but with some examples (including small and large-scale hydropower, wind power, geothermal heat and power, first-generation biofuels and solar water heating systems) exceeding 30%. This was due mainly to their improved cost competitiveness, an increase in support policies and growing public support due to the threats of an insecure energy supply and climate change. Exceptional examples are large-scale hydropower in Norway and hydro and geothermal power in Iceland approaching 100% of RE electricity, as has also been achieved by several small islands and towns. Other less mature technologies require continuing investment in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D), infrastructure, capacity building and other supporting measures over the longer term. Such technologies include advanced biofuels, fuel cells, solar fuels, distributed power generation control systems, electric vehicles, solar absorption cooling and enhanced geothermal systems. The current status of RE use varies for each end-use sector. There are also major regional variations in future pathways to enhance further integration by removal of barriers. For example, in the building sector, integrating RE technologies is vastly different for commercial high-rise buildings and apartments in mega-cities than for integration into small, modest village dwellings in developing countries that currently have limited access to energy services. Taking a holistic approach to the whole energy system may be a prerequisite to ensure efficient and flexible RE integration. This would include achieving mutual support between the different energy sectors, an intelligent forecasting and control strategy and coherent long-term planning. Together, these would enable the provision of electricity, heating, cooling and mobility to be more closely inter-linked. The optimum combination of technologies and social mechanisms to enable RE integration to reach high shares varies with the limitations of specific site conditions, characteristics of the available RE resources, and local energy demands.
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sources. In addition to improving network infrastructure, several other important integration options have been identified through operating experience or studies. They are increased generation flexibility, demand side measures, electrical energy storage, improved operational/market and planning methods etc. As the amounts of RE resources increase, additional electricity network infrastructure (transmission and/or distribution) will generally have to be constructed. Variable renewable sources, such as wind, can be more difficult to integrate than dispatchable renewable sources, such as bioenergy, and with increasing levels maintaining reliability becomes more challenging and costly. These challenges and costs can be minimized by deploying a portfolio of options including electrical network interconnection, the development of complementary flexible generation, larger balancing areas, sub-hourly markets, demand that can respond in relation to supply availability, storage technologies, and better forecasting, system operating and planning tools.
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The production, blending and distribution system for a range of liquid biofuels
Even though cost of biofuel delivery is a small fraction of the overall cost, the logistics and capital requirements for widespread integration and expansion could present major hurdles. Since ethanol has only around two-thirds the energy density (by volume) of gasoline, larger storage systems, more rail cars or vessels, and larger capacity pipelines are needed to store and transport the same amount. This tentatively would increases the fuel storage and delivery costs. Typically, current volumes of ethanol produced in an agricultural region to meet local demand, or for export, are usually too low to justify the related investment costs and operational of pipeline.
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7.1. Transport
Meeting the increasing demand of transportation, whilst achieving a low-carbon, secure energy supply, will require strong policy initiatives, rapid technological change, monetary incentives and/or the willingness of customers to pay additional costs. In 2008, the combustion of fossil fuels for transport consumed around 19% of global primary energy use, equivalent to 30% of total consumer energy and producing around 22% of GHG emissions, plus a significant share of local air-polluting emissions. Light duty vehicles (LDVs) accounted for over half of transport fuel consumption worldwide, with heavy duty vehicles (HDVs) accounting for 24%, aviation 11%, shipping 10% and rail 3%. Demand for mobility is growing rapidly with the number of motorized vehicles projected to triple by 2050 and with a similar growth in air travel. Maintaining a secure supply of energy is therefore a serious concern for the transport sector with about 94% of transport fuels presently coming from oil products that, for most countries, are imported. The current use of RE for transport is only a few percent of the total energy demand, mainly through electric rail and the blending of liquid biofuels with petroleum products. Millions of LDVs capable of running on high-biofuel blends are already in the world fleet and biofuel technology is commercially mature, as is the use of compressed biomethane in vehicles suitable for running on compressed natural gas. However, making a transition to new fuels and engine types is a complex process involving technology development, cost, infrastructure, consumer acceptance, and environmental and resource impacts. Transition issues vary for biofuels, hydrogen, and electric vehicles with no one option seen to be a clear winner and all needing several decades to be deployed at a large scale. An advantage of biofuels is their relative compatibility with the existing liquid fuel infrastructure. They can be blended with petroleum products and most ICE vehicles can be run on blends, some even on up to 100% biofuel. Hydrogen has the potential to tap vast new energy resources to provide transport with zero or nearzero emissions. The technology for hydrogen from biomass gasification is being developed, and could become competitive beyond 2025. Hydrogen derived from RE sources by electrolysis has cost barriers rather than issues of technical feasibility or resource availability. Given all these uncertainties and cost reduction challenges, it is important to maintain a portfolio approach over a long time line that includes behavioural changes (for example to reduce annual vehicle kilometres travelled or kilometres flown), more energy efficient vehicles, and a variety of low-carbon fuels.
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7.3. Industry
Manufacturing industries account for about 30% of global final energy use, although the share differs markedly between countries. The sector is highly diverse, but around 85% of industrial energy use is by the more energy-intensive heavy industries including iron and steel, nonferrous metals, chemicals and fertilizers, petroleum refining, mineral mining, and pulp and paper. There are no severe technical limits to increasing the direct and indirect use of RE in industry in the future. However, integration in the short term may be limited by factors such as land and space constraints or demands for high reliability and continuous operation. In addition to the integration of higher shares of RE, key measures to reduce industrial energy demands and/or GHG emissions include energy efficiency, recycling of materials, CCS for CO2-emitting industries such as cement manufacturing, and the substitution of fossil fuel feed stocks. In
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addition, industry can provide demand-response facilities that are likely to achieve greater prominence in future electricity systems that have a higher penetration of variable RE sources. The main opportunities for RE integration in industry include: direct use of biomass-derived fuels and process residues for onsite production, and use of biofuels, heat and CHP; indirect use through increased use of RE-based electricity, including electro-thermal processes; indirect use through other purchased RE-based energy carriers including heat, liquid fuels, biogas, and, possibly to a greater degree in the future, hydrogen; direct use of solar thermal energy for process heat and steam demands although few examples exist to date; and direct use of geothermal resources for process heat and steam demands. Industry is not only a potential user of RE but also a potential supplier of bioenergy as a coproduct. The current direct use of RE in industry is dominated by biomass produced in the pulp and paper, sugar and ethanol industries as process by-products and used for cogenerated heat and electricity, mainly onsite for the process but also sold off-site. Biomass is also an important fuel for many small and medium enterprises such as brick making, notably as charcoal in developing countries. Use of RE in industry has had difficulty in competing in the past in many regions due to relatively low fossil fuel prices together with low, or non-existent, energy and carbon taxes. RE support policies in different countries tend to focus more on the transport and building sectors than on industry and consequently the potential for RE integration is relatively uncertain. Where support policies have been applied, successful RE deployment has resulted.
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Despite barriers to greater RE technology deployment including high capital costs, lack of available financing and remoteness from energy demand, it is likely that RE will be used to a greater degree by the global agricultural sector in the future to meet energy demands for primary production and post-harvest operations at both large and small scales. Integration strategies that could increase the deployment of RE in the primary sector will partly depend upon the local and regional RE resources, on-farm energy demand patterns, project financing opportunities and existing energy markets.
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