Renewable energy sources

07/03/05

New and renewable energy sources

The development of renewable energy - particularly energy from wind, water, solar power and biomass - is a central aim of the European Commission's energy policy.

Renewable energy has an important role to play in reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions - a major Community objective. Increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy balance enhances sustainability. It also helps to improve the security of energy supply by reducing the Community's growing dependence on imported energy sources. Renewable energy sources (RES) are expected to be economically competitive with conventional energy sources in the medium to long term.

Strategic Goals of the European Union

In the Green Paper the European Commission sought views on the setting of an indicative objective of 12 % for the contribution by renewable sources of energy to the European Union’s gross inland energy consumption by 2010.

Bioenergy

In order for the markets for solid biomass to be further developed, the following must be actively promoted:

• co-firing or fossil fuel substitution in coal power plants and in existing district heating networks,
• new district heating or cooling networks as an outlet for co-generation with biomass,
• greater access to upgraded fuels such as chips and pellets and a more intensive exploitation of appropriate forest, wood and paper industry residues,
• new scaled up IGCC (Integrated Gasification in Combined Cycle) systems in the capacity range of 25-50 MWe based on a mixture of biomass and waste derived fuels, and
• clean energy generation from municipal waste either by thermal treatment, landfill gas recovery or anaerobic digestion as long as energy generation from waste complements and does not replace waste prevention and recycling.

Building (improved regulations)

In order to promote the use of renewable energy sources in buildings, the following specific measures are proposed:

• incorporation of requirements on the use of solar energy for heating and cooling in building approvals under current legislative, administrative and other provisions on town and country planning should be considered,
• promotion of high efficiency windows and solar facades, natural ventilation and window blinds in new buildings and for retrofitting,
• promotion of active solar energy systems for space heating and cooling and warm water, e.g. solar collectors, geothermal heating and heat pumps,
• promotion of passive solar energy for heating and cooling,
• encouragement of PV systems to be integrated in building construction (roofs, facades) and in public spaces,
• photovoltaic electricity sales to utilities from private customers should be priced so as to allow direct reversible metering, and
• measures to encourage the use of construction materials with a low intrinsic energy content, e.g. timber.

WWW-pages regarding renewable energy sources:

• Energy Information Administration, EIA
• Energy Conservation In Buildings And Community Systems, ECBCS
• BP
• Shell

Article: Renewable Energy sources. Modern trends (pdf, 62 KB). Stefan Nilsson, Energidalen i Sollefteå AB presented in the ESCOBALT conference on National Energy Systems in 7-9.6.2005 Lublin, Poland.