The partnership will drive the development, commercialization and adoption of advanced, fully integrated solutions for plastic waste processing.

Sulzer says the move will allow it to offer complete recycling lines based on Fuenix’s Ecogy technology and Sulzer’s own separation and purification solutions.

The technology from Netherlands-based Fuenix Ecogy converts sorted end-of-life mixed plastic waste into high-value hydrocarbons with ‘virgin-like’ properties.

More Sulzer news:
Landmark commercial e-methanol plant to be built in Denmark

The solution offers high recovery and conversion rates, enabling a high degree of circularity in the plastic value chain.

Fuenix Ecogy Group chief executive Sirt Mellema said the partnership with Sulzer “will be key to help us scale our technology and promote its global adoption, so that we can help create a circular economy for plastic waste”.

Suzanne Thoma, Executive Chair at Sulzer, added: “With the acquisition of a stake in Fuenix Ecogy we are enhancing our scope and portfolio in creating fully circular, zero-waste plastic value chains.

Transforming Estonia’s circular economy
From linear to circular: the business transition to sustainability

The post Sulzer acquires stake in plastic upcycling business appeared first on Power Engineering International.

04h00 New York | 08h00 GMT | 09h00 London | 10h00 Amsterdam | 10h00 Johannesburg | 12h00 Dubai | 13h30 New Delhi | 16h00 Singapore

60-minute session

The energy landscape is changing rapidly with a clear focus on reduced emissions, decarbonized energy, and increased efficiency. Sustainability is an important prerequisite for remaining qualified for existing business relationships and developing new customers and markets.

To anticipate these trends, Rolls-Royce with its product brand mtu has approved most of its generator sets for use with paraffinic diesel fuels EN15940, including HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil).

To support the customer’s journey towards sustainability, Rolls-Royce established the foundation for a strategic partnership with Neste, a worldwide leading HVO upstream player.

Working with Neste, we will promote the contribution of internal combustion engine technology towards sustainability—a transition from fossil fuel to renewable fuel, thus underlining and demonstrating the openness of this technology. Our common goal is to transfer existing technology to a greener century.

Join this live webinar that aims to bring transparency to alternative fuel solutions, focusing on HVO and how its use can be applied to our mtu power generation applications.

What you will learn:

• Insights into mtu Rolls-Royce net zero roadmap focused on Power Generation
• Background on European emission legislation
• Categorize and explain the range of paraffinic fuels as alternatives to fossil fuels
• HVO as today’s available solution
• HVO testing results
• Characteristics positively impacting genset performance

Our partner Neste enriches this webinar by adding information about NESTE MY Renewable Diesel, global availability, and pricing mechanisms.

Speakers

Michael Stipa, Vice President Business Development, Strategy and Product Management Stationary | Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG

Mats Hultmann, Head of OEM Partnerships | Neste

Moderator

Pamela Largue, Senior Content Producer | Power Engineering International

The post Webcast 30 March | HVO fuel for mtu power generation appeared first on Power Engineering International.

The joint project is headed by Sandia National Laboratories, CEMEX and Synhelion and was known formally as Solar-Thermal Mixed-Media Enhancement and Decarbonization of Clinker Formation, which would use concentrated solar thermal energy in clinker production, a key component in cement.

CEMEX and Synhelion have worked to introduce Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) technology in the cement production process, achieving a successful laboratory-scale pilot in 2022. Sandia Laboratories will contribute research facilities as part of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility, along with subject matter expertise to help accelerate the technology’s adaptation to cement manufacturing.

Have you read?
Replacing F-gases in switchgear: a revolution in the making
UK projects get £6m to decarbonise industry

Cement clinker is a solid material produced in the manufacture of Portland cement. It is produced by sintering limestone and aluminosilicate materials such as clay during the cement kiln stage. Fossil fuels are typically used to heat the kiln and are responsible for around 40% of direct CO2 emissions from the process.

Synhelion’s technology delivers process heat beyond 1,500 degrees Celsius to produce clinker without using fossil fuels.

Few renewable technologies are capable of generating heat at the temperatures needed to process raw cement feedstock, said Nathan Schroeder, Sandia researcher and principal investigator for the Solar MEAD project. The project is expected to advance understanding of how to use CST to gather and deliver heat to existing cement production facilities. Techniques could be used in other ore processing industries such as refractory, ceramics, and battery production.

The project is designed to investigate methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, lower process temperatures, and increase the efficiency of clinker formation using solar energy. The team will assess the conditions to maximise heat transfer to the raw cement mix.

Successful adoption of this technology in cement manufacturing could allow for the replacement of fossil fuels.

Synhelion evolved from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2016 in a bid to decarbonise the transportation sector. Synhelion is currently building its first industrial solar fuel plant in Germany. The first commercial production facility is planned for commissioning in Spain by 2025. 

Mexico-based CEMEX offers cement, ready-mix concrete, and aggregates in global markets.

Originally published on renewableenergyworld.com

The post DOE backs project to scale solar thermal technology to produce cement appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Carbon Clean’s technology will capture 70,000 tonnes per year of CO2 from a biomass-fired combined heat and power plant in Örnsköldsvik.

Have you read?
Geo-data contract awarded for UK’s first power station with carbon capture
TotalEnergies bags two Danish carbon storage licenses

FlagshipONE will combine the biogenic carbon dioxide with renewable hydrogen to produce 50,000 tonnes per year of eMethanol for use in the shipping industry.

Anders Nordstrøm, COO of Ørsted P2X, said: “FlagshipONE is a milestone project for Ørsted and for the decarbonisation of the maritime industry – and we’re very happy to be working with Carbon Clean, as we embark on the journey to transform global shipping.”

Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, said: “The FlagshipONE project not only demonstrates the role carbon capture must play in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors, such as shipping, but also that the technology is ready and there is absolute confidence in our ability to deliver at scale.

“We speak often about the storage of captured carbon, but this project is a perfect example of utilisation – the ‘U’ in CCUS – and we are thrilled to be working alongside Ørsted to deliver this project.”

The carbon capture plant will be modular and designed for ease of construction. Following off-site testing, modules will be transported and assembled on site in autumn 2024.

FlagshipONE, Ørsted’s first commercial-scale Power-to-X facility, is expected to be operational in 2025.

The post Ørsted awards FlagshipONE carbon capture contract to Carbon Clean appeared first on Power Engineering International.

The licenses are located 250 kilometers off the west coast of Denmark and cover an area of 2,118 km².

The area includes the Harald gas fields, for which TotalEnergies is already assessing CO2 storage for the Bifrost project, as well as a saline aquifer that could increase CO2 storage volumes.

Have you read?
Geo-data contract awarded for UK’s first power station with carbon capture
UK projects get £6m to decarbonise industry

Alongside state-owned Nordsøfonden (20%), TotalEnergies (80%) will be the future operator of the offshore CO2 storage licenses.

The Company will carry out evaluation and appraisal work to develop a project that could ultimately transport and permanently store more than 5 Mt CO2/year, by repurposing existing infrastructure in the Danish North Sea and building new facilities.

Equinor’s Trine Borum Bojsen on how to unlock wind potential of North Sea

“With its large geological storage potential and its proximity to major industrial emitters in Central Europe, Denmark can play a leading role in carbon capture and storage on the continent,” said Arnaud Le Foll, senior vice president new business – carbon neutrality at TotalEnergies.

“With the Northern Lights project under construction in Norway and projects under development in the Netherlands and the UK, the North Sea area will be the main contributor to our objective of 10 Mt/y of CO2 storage by 2030 and to the decarbonization of the European economy.”

The post TotalEnergies bags two Danish carbon storage licenses appeared first on Power Engineering International.

It truly is a sight to behold: an offshore wind farm with over 100 giant turbines covering an area of 300km2. With a capacity of 714MW, the East Anglia One wind farm off England’s Suffolk coasts produces enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of more than 630,000 homes.

To watch the power-generating field amidst the relentless waves of the southern North Sea is extremely impressive. Yet there’s a hidden feature that also makes the wind farm notable. On each wind turbine, the field uses the greenest insulation possible for its high-voltage switchgear: clean air instead of SF₆ (sulphur hexafluoride), which used to be the standard.

The answer is indeed blowin’ in the wind, and the times they are a-changin’.

This article is part of the ‘Future Energy Perspectives’ series, in which experts from Siemens Energy share their insights into how we can move towards a decarbonised energy system.

SF₆, a man-made and odourless gas, belongs to the family of F-gases (fluorinated gasses). As the most harmful and long-lasting greenhouse gas emitted by human activity, it’s 25,200 times more potent than CO₂ and has an atmospheric lifetime of up to 3,200 years.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, around 80% are used worldwide in the switchgear industry. Therefore, it’s clear that tackling this segment is paramount.That’s why East Anglia One should lead the way for effective efforts towards protecting the environment.

It doesn’t just generate renewable energy, but it also sets new standards in decarbonizing the power transmission part of the project.The wind farm has been in operation for almost three years, being one of the first using switchgear with a global warming potential (GWP) of zero.

Regulating F-gases

Today, the continued use of SF₆ and other fluorinated gases in high-voltage insulation are pressing concerns when it comes to clean power transmission, especially, as the demand for insulated switchgear has risen sharply.

This is due to decentralised renewable energy production, the global rise in electricity consumption and increased urbanisation which also increases the demand for small substations, and hence, for compact environmentally friendly switchgear.

Regulators have taken note and are increasingly pushing away from fluorinated gases. For instance, the high GWP of SF₆ led the EU to prohibit SF₆ in 2014 for most applications, except for the power sector due to a lack of alternatives at the time.

In April 2022, the European Commission proposed a revision of this key legislation calling for more restrictions on using F-gases in grid technologies.

It would reduce F-gases by 90% by 2050, and ban using F-gases in switchgear with a GWP of more than 10 by 2026 to 2031 (high-voltage), depending on the voltage of the switchgear.

It also allows for flexibility in niche situations where F-gas-free alternatives might not be available.

In California, regulation is already in place to remove F-gases from gas-insulated switchgear. And unsurprisingly, at the recent COP27 in Egypt, F-gases were central topics of panel discussions aimed at exploring F-gas-free alternatives globally.

In the 1960s, SF₆ replaced oil in switchgear

What made SF₆ such a popular gas for switchgear in the first place?

For obvious reasons, it’s a highly effective arc-quenching and insulating medium with long-term stability, and with precautions, relatively safe to handle. Until the 1960s, oil was used as an arc-quenching media for high-voltage circuit breakers in substations around the world.

However, it had a variety of disadvantages, such as fire risk and maintenance intensity. When SF₆ was first implemented, it was seen as an excellent alternative for improving the performance and safety of high-voltage applications.

Currently, SF₆ is still the standard gas used in switchgear worldwide today. Thousands of tons of SF₆ are installed in switchgear globally every year, with an expected lifespan of 40-60 years.

For sure, manufacturers aren’t taking risks posed by SF₆ lightly. Current state-of-the-art technology allows for keeping the leakage rate of SF₆ below 0.1% per year.

At the same time, system engineers are all sensitized to and trained in the careful handling of switchgear components containing SF₆.

Natural-origin or fluorinated gases?

Yet, given the net-zero target that’s been embraced worldwide to minimize climate change, SF₆ will need to be completely phased out for switchgear equipment.

The main contenders for replacing SF₆ are based on gases of natural origin, such as CO₂, O₂, and N₂, and gas mixtures, including other man-made fluorinated gases having a fraction of the climate impact of SF₆.

Though fluorinated gas mixtures have less global warming potential than SF₆, the GWP is still some hundreds above 1. In addition, these gas mixtures lose their effectiveness at very low temperatures.

There is also a risk that switchgear components wear out more quickly, which in turn, reduces switching performance and results in higher maintenance costs.

In addition, gas handling is much more complex than with natural-origin gases, and service and storage requirements are correspondingly higher. In this case, the tightness of the switchgear is above SF₆ and results in higher maintenance costs. As these F-gases belong to the ‘forever chemical’ PFAS (per- and polyfluoro-alkyl) group, they can involve further risks.

As PFAS chemicals are connected to environmental pollution and health risks, there’s a global trend towards PFAS phase-out and regulatory restrictions for these substances, where alternative solutions are available.

To actively ensure sustainability, one of the biggest market players, 3M, announced at the end of 2022, that it would exit (PFAS) manufacturing and work towards discontinuing its use of PFAS across its product portfolio by the end of 2025.

Shifting from SF₆ in switchgear to natural-origin gases

The other alternative to SF₆ are F-gas-free products that use natural-origin gases as an insulation medium. This gas technology poses zero harm to the environment, climate and human health. But how realistic is it to move away from SF₆ -insulated switchgear to natural-origin gases as insulation?

Today, more and more switchgear manufacturers, transmission and distribution operators as well as regulators favour F-gas-free-options with GWP of zero, or < 1, with no contamination risk of the atmosphere, water, or soil.

That also means there’s no need for careful handling, recycling, and reporting as required by law when using SF₆ and other F-gases in some parts of the world.

Finally, looking at the proposed different transition timelines for phasing out SF₆, it’s clear that today’s F-gas-free technology can meet that challenge.

Download your copy of ‘Replacing F-gases in switchgear: a revolution in the making’

Switching gears for net zero

It’s already happening: and not just offshore. In 2018, Siemens Energy supplied a substation of Norwegian network operator BKK Nett in Bergen with a clean air switchgear from its ‘Blue Portfolio’.

Clean air consists of purely 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen and has a GWP of zero. Worldwide, the company currently has more than 1,000 switchgear units with clean air in operation.

From 2030 onwards, Siemens Energy aims to sell only F-gas-free products globally. Also, other manufacturers are very active: companies from Europe, Japan, South Korea and China are able to offer natural-origin gases-based switchgears, e.g. offering also circuit breakers based on CO₂/O₂ gas mixture with a GWP < 1.

And some of these companies have formed an alliance called “Switching gears for net zero” calling for zero F-gases in switchgear.

Natural origin gases with GWP < 1 means no new emissions, easy and safe handling, no health risks to workers or environmental harm. The CO₂ footprint of natural origin gas equipment is significantly lower than that of SF₆ and offers the only solution to have zero direct emissions and is able to achieve zero carbon footprint when coupled with a fully decarbonized supply chain.

Using natural origin gas solutions reduces life cycle costs of the equipment significantly. The equipment can be used at very low temperatures of up to -50°C without any countermeasures.

More Future Energy Perspectives
How disruptive service solutions will re-energize power plants
Scaling up clean fuels for net zero
Kicking out coal and greening gas on the road to net zero

Benign non-toxic gases for higher high voltage ranges

Though the path ahead may seem clear, during this transitional phase switchgear manufacturers, as well as transmission operators, still have their work cut out for them.

That’s particularly the case with wind farms. While there are first projects equipped with F-gas-free switchgear in wind turbines, the switchgear combining the power infeed with voltages above 145 kV still uses SF₆-insulated switchgear (albeit only kilograms, not tonnes as in many substations).

Why? Alternative products with clean air or other harmless gas mixtures are not available yet for this kV-range.

But it’s no secret that they’re in the works. At Siemens Energy, for instance, validations for switchgear with 400kV are in progress, while switchgear with no circuit breaker function like instrument transformers and gas-insulated busducts are already available for up to 420kV.

Other manufacturers are also pushing forward. So, F-gas-free alternatives should also be available for these higher voltage-ranges soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Mark Kuschel is Head of International Standardization at Siemens Energy, steering standardization and regulation topics for the company’s Grid Technologies business. For more than 20 years he has held various positions in the Transmission and Distribution business, where he was also one of the initiators of sustainable, F-gas-free products.

The post Replacing F-gases in switchgear: a revolution in the making appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Funding of £6 million ($7.3m) has been awarded to 20 research projects to accelerate the decarbonisation of industry in the UK.

The 20 projects are spread across 14 UK research institutions and are all intended to support the UK’s green growth and net zero ambitions by 2050.

The money has come from the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), which is part of the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge.

IDRIC launched a call for industrial decarbonisation research projects, offering stakeholders the opportunity to respond to emerging innovation and research needs and complementing its existing programme of projects.

Read now: Decarbonising industries with renewable power and thermal storage

The 20 projects cover technologies including carbon capture and hydrogen, plus issues such as skills development and equality, diversity and inclusion.

The successful bids demonstrated how they would employ active dialogue and collaboration with key industrial stakeholders to ensure that outcomes and impact remain closely tied to industry needs. A full list of successful bids is listed below.

Listen now: Podcast – Lessons from a Danish hydrogen pilot project

Bryony Livesey, director of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge at UKRI, said the projects “will build evidence on a range of areas from economics and emissions to skilled jobs and wider net zero policy, supporting UK’s green growth and net zero ambitions”. 

IDRIC director Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer said: “We were delighted by the quality and volume of applications received. IDRIC’s programme has demonstrated that we have the tools to transform industry and make it an engine of green growth.”

To 20 successful bids are listed here.

Video: Tangible opportunities to decarbonize industry. Watch here.

The post <strong>UK projects get £6m to decarbonise industry</strong> appeared first on Power Engineering International.

It was writer and socialite Zelda Fitzgerald – wife of F. Scott – who said “she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring”.

Songwriter Neil Tennant of pop group the Pet Shop Boys later loosely adapted the quote for the band’s hit Being Boring.

No one could accuse Annika Viklund of being boring: she’s the progressive-thinking Senior Vice-President of Vattenfall Distribution in Sweden.

Yet when we meet, it’s not electricity grids she wants to talk about, but the perception of the energy sector as ‘being boring’.

“If there’s one thing that keeps me awake at night, it’s the scarcity of talent in the energy industry. Many of the older generation are now going into retirement at the same time that we have electrification and decarbonisation, and we need people who can build and plan and operate.”

This problem, she says, is compounded by the fact that “the energy industry is seen as the ‘old boring guys’”.

She’s clear that to tackle this problem, a strategy is needed to target not college students, but children.

More exclusive interviews
Equinor’s Trine Borum Bojsen on how to unlock wind potential of North Sea
Poland’s energy transition: Two steps forward, one step back
Why heating and cooling is the missing piece of Europe’s energy transition

“We need to be in pre-school or kindergarten, or elementary school, and show them that they can become a climate influencer. There are so many things that they can do.

“We need to say: ‘You matter to this world. And you can make a difference if you come into our business.’ Everybody needs to feel that they are important and needed.”

She stresses that the industry needs more than just engineers: “We need lawyers, we need economists, we need communicators.”

She says that there is a perception that the next generation workforce wants more from a job than their parents did, yet Viklund has three children in their 20s and she states that “surprisingly, they are not so different from what I was”.

Have you visited our sister site Enlit.World? Try it here:
The talent challenge: How to attract a skilled workforce for the energy transition
In the spotlight: Start-up landscape in Berlin and beyond

“They would like to have an interesting development of their life and a work-life balance. They would like to learn at work, and to be accepted and included for who they are.”

All things that should be a given in any career and certainly things that the energy sector should – and does – offer.

But she stresses that to counter this draining of the current talent pool, the industry needs to collaborate as a whole, otherwise “we all fail together”.

“We have to start by looking at where the jobs will be, going forward. What kind of industries will be needed?”

And she is adamant that the energy sector should “definitely join forces with other industries. Too often, particular industries see themselves as ‘no one understands me – I’m very, very special’.

“But I think we have much in common, so we need to see these people – and not only young people, but those who wish to change career path in their 40s – as a whole potential new workforce.

“We need to see how different industries can cooperate and be much closer to schools and communities, like, I guess, it was in the ‘old days’.

“Maybe we should be inspired by the ‘old days’, when communities were stronger. Individualism is good… inclusivity is better.”

Community. Inclusivity. Communication. Collaboration. These are the words Viklund uses repeatedly in our interview: not just about recruiting new talent but also regarding the other major issues facing the energy sector, not least the race to net zero.

And a race is exactly how she describes it: “It’s a relay race to be sustainable. And don’t underestimate industries and consumers, because they don’t want to be in the position of saying: ‘I did nothing’. We need to run a little bit faster and a little bit smarter.”

Viklund is clearly a thinker, but she is also evidently a ‘do-er’.

She insists that to counter the climate crisis, the energy sector needs to get out of the blocks and start running the race.

“We can’t wait anymore. We need to ‘do’. We need to learn and proceed. We have a world in crisis and I am concerned that we think we have time to think and analyse more.

“Innovations often come from engineers and academics, and they like to have everything in place before they move. I’m not sure we can afford to do that.”

She looks to entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for inspiration: “They ‘do’, they try, sometimes they fail… and they pick themselves up and go again.”

She emphasises that a key reason the sector needs to ‘do’, is that many of its customers have already been busy ‘doing’ for themselves. “I have customers breathing down my neck saying: ‘We need to get started.’

“They have found a way to produce products that are fossil free and decarbonised, and they want to put it on the market and get the market share.”

Watch now:
How Siemens Energy is future-proofing the gas turbine with hydrogen

“Sometimes you can believe that large industries do not move until they get large incentives to do so. Yet these companies are so much more engaged in sustainability, and by working with sustainability, they see how they can contribute.

“And then in turn, their customers start to ask how they can contribute to sustainability.

“People and industries start moving without incentives. Then you need the right incentives to get the late-movers to join.

“We need to include people. We need to engage people. Otherwise, we can’t get the whole of the civilised world to move. We need to move fast, be brave, to design and redesign.”

She compares the need for speed on climate action to the urgency that was required to find medical solutions to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Sometimes I’m impressed by how leaders act during a crisis. We now need to act like we did around the pandemic. So many decisions were taken that were going into the unknown – they were not trialled before. But it worked.”

Viklund says we should not look at the climate crisis “as if we haven’t adopted tremendous solutions and innovations in the past, because we have.

“I have a basic belief that everybody tries to do good things. All over Europe and the rest of the world, people are taking the measures that they can”.

What we need now, she says, is a coordinated approach to a common goal.

“Communication and collaboration, between society, politicians, and consumers. We need to have some kind of common roadmap to see how we can gather in our communities to discuss these topics. I think that’s an underestimated resource.”

The post ‘Scarcity of talent keeps me awake at night’ says Annika Viklund of Vattenfall appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Scientists from Australia’s Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM) have successfully tested a new process that can extract silicon from old solar panels, and convert it into a nano material that can be used to build better batteries.

This converted nano-silicon is then mixed with graphite to develop a new type of battery anode shown to increase lithium-ion battery capacity by a factor of 10.

More than 100,000 tonnes of end-of-life solar panels will enter Australia’s waste stream by 2035 according to the research team. For this reason, lead researcher Dr Md Mokhlesur Rahman believes it’s critical to develop a successful recycling programme to divert old panels away from landfill and harvest and repurpose the panels’ most valuable components.

“Solar panel cells are fabricated using high-value silicon, but this material cannot be re-used without purification, as it becomes highly contaminated over the 25 to 30 years of the panel’s life,” Dr Rahman said.

“We have developed a process that returns silicon collected from used cells to greater than 99 per cent purity, within a day and without the need for dangerous chemicals. This thermal and chemical process is far greener, cheaper, and more efficient than any other technique currently on the market.”

The Deakin process then takes this regular-sized purified silicon and reduces its size to nanoscale using a special ball-milling process. Again, without the need for toxic chemicals.

Have you read?
Rooftop solar plant powers Toyota industrial facility in Paris
Brazil island to host Iberdrola’s first floating solar PV plant

“We are using that nano-silicon to develop low-cost battery materials that will help deliver the higher performing, longer lasting, affordable battery technology critically needed to drive Australia’s clean energy transition,” Dr Rahman said.

The current market price for nano-silicon is about $45,000 per kilo, compared to about $650 for regular silicon, and it is in even higher demand. Not just for new battery materials, but also for use in the development of nano-fertilisers, innovative new methods for carbon capture, and on-demand hydrogen gas generation.

By recycling solar panels, the IFM team has found a way to make this seriously expensive material more accessible. They estimate their technique could generate US$15 billion in material recovery if extrapolated to the 78 million tonnes of solar panel waste expected to be generated globally by 2050.

So far, the work has been supported with funding from the ARC and Sustainability Victoria, and the team is now talking with industry about plans to scale-up their process.

The post Researchers extract silicon from old solar panels to build better batteries appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Poland has traditionally been viewed as the ‘black sheep’ of energy transition in Europe.

The dominance of (mostly) domestically-mined coal in its power generation — currently at around 70% — has long been contributing to the country’s energy security.

It has also, however, been a big liability weighed down by increasing CO2 prices and the ever more stringent environmental standards requiring costly upgrades of coal-fired power plants.

At the same time, the Polish economy has been one of the fastest growing in the EU: it was the only EU country not to go into recession between 2007 and 2009 amid the financial crisis and has also been among the strongest performers during the Covid pandemic.

GDP per capita, measured in purchasing power parity, is now close to 80% of the EU average, and disposable household income has grown almost twofold in the past ten years.

READ | GE secures €1bn agreement with Polish Export Credit Agency

These favourable economic developments, combined with the continuing drop in the costs of renewables, have made the prospect of transforming the energy sector in Poland more palatable to Polish society.

In fact, climate change now ranks high among the worries of the average Polish citizen: close to 80% of those polled last summer responded that climate change is a real threat to our civilisation.

At the same time, however, there was an interesting response regarding how to translate that threat when it comes to Polish energy policy.

Over 40% said that Poland should strive to achieve climate neutrality at its own pace, even if it means that it will be after the EU’s 2050 deadline.

This nicely illustrates the problem that European energy policies have always presented in Poland. Polish citizens, while generally among the most Euroenthusiastic nations in the EU, have usually been very sceptical of EU policies and regulations.

READ | Israeli IPP wins €150m for Romania and Poland solar farms

This scepticism is perhaps most pronounced in the energy sector, where EU climate policy has historically been perceived as too costly, as well as threatening to deprive Poland of its domestic resource and cause widespread economic trouble in the affected regions.

Germany’s household power prices, which shot up after the generous feed-in-tariff fuelled solar boom from 2010 to 2012, was viewed as a useful example that the energy transition was only for the rich.

A lot, however, has changed in the past few years. Even if the Polish government’s rhetoric is sometimes quite sketchy, the Polish economy and Polish citizens have been heading down the path towards the energy transition.

The real turning point came after 2015 when a new law on support of renewables was adopted. That law introduced an auctioning system for renewables with support granted in the form of double-sided contracts for difference (CfDs).

READ | Poland’s low-carbon ambitions offer clear investment and business opportunities

It might be argued that Poland has benefitted from a last-mover advantage. While being fairly late to the table with a comprehensive system for renewables (the previous green certificate scheme, introduced in 2005, supported initial growth in onshore wind development and biomass co-firing), it introduced a robust system.

On one hand, the CfD system gave investors certainty, and on the other hand, it protected customers from unnecessary costs in the future. The current EU energy crisis clearly points to the advantages of this type of support mechanism, which will probably be used much more widely in many more European countries in the future.

The strike prices achieved in the CfD already been observed elsewhere: that prices of renewable energy sources have plummeted to levels comparable with wholesale prices (and are currently at an order of magnitude lower than that).

Since that point the energy transformation in Poland could use a powerful argument — you could no longer say ‘we cannot afford to develop renewables’. On the contrary, you should be saying ‘we cannot afford NOT to develop renewables’.

The road since that time has been bumpy, though. In 2016, a distancing law for onshore windfarms was introduced, which prevented locating windfarms at a distance closer than 10 times the tip height of the turbine from homes and neighbourhoods.

This meant that most locations in the country were now off limits. At the time of writing this article, the Polish parliament has still not voted on the draft law amending these provisions that was presented by the government in June 2022.

LISTEN | Energy Transitions Podcast: Poland – Race to 55

And this is while the EU package of measures aimed at getting off Russian gas — REPowerEU, introduced in May 2022 — has asked for a comprehensive review of the permitting regimes and suggested treating all renewables as being in the overriding public interest. Polish reluctance to speed up onshore wind development is completely incomprehensible in this respect.

But there are other very optimistic developments. The past two years have seen an unprecedented growth of rooftop solar, fuelled by growing social awareness and a fairly generous net metering scheme complemented with direct subsidies.

Rooftop solar has grown from around 1GW at the end of 2019 to 8GW in June 2022, which has absolutely surpassed any governmental projections.

This trend will undoubtedly continue as the economic rationale for homegrown energy sources has never been better, even if net metering has been changed into net billing — a less generous, but more equitable scheme.

Another big success story is heat pump deployment. Last year Poland was the fastest-growing heat pump market in Europe, with a growth rate of 87% (albeit from a rather small base). This year might shatter that record.

Growth is promoted by government-funded schemes that encourage replacing coal boilers with modern installations: Poland is the only country in Europe that still uses coal to heat individual houses — around three million households use this type of heating source — which explains why many Polish cities consistently rank among the most polluted in Europe.

The share of heat pumps in these subsidy schemes, which are also open to other technologies like gas and biomass boilers, has increased up to 60% through June: it was around 30% at the beginning of 2022.

These positive developments are also supported by the fact that three large heat pump manufacturers have recently announced plans to build new factories in Poland, increasing the total number of units produced to 650,000 by 2025.

Finally, in just a few years, a new energy source will be covering more than 10% of Poland’s electricity consumption. Offshore wind got a big boost last year with the regulatory environment decisively established (a dedicated offshore wind act adopted, a relevant grid development plan approved, and a maritime spatial plan drawn up) and five projects totalling nearly 6GW are currently under advanced development.

These projects are due to come online around 2026-2027. Another 2GW of offshore wind are a bit less advanced.

A competition to develop new sites of up to 11GW is currently under way. In addition, on 30 August the Polish Prime Minister, together with the other seven countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, signed the ‘Marienborg Declaration’, committing to ‘explore joint cross-border renewable energy projects’ and identify infrastructure needs to enable their integration. This may signal a reverse in a long-standing policy of a self-centred development of energy sources.

While Polish strategic planning documents in the energy sector are sometimes not painting a very clear picture of where the country is going, it seems that reality occasionally overtakes political discussions.

In particular, the growing understanding and acceptance among Polish consumers and industries of the merits of energy transformation towards renewables — especially in the current energy crisis — points to a more optimistic future. Even if the regulatory landscape might still be moving two steps forward, one step back.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Monika Morawiecka is a senior advisor for the Regulatory Assistance Project, a global NGO specialised in energy policy.

The post Poland’s energy transition: Two steps forward, one step back appeared first on Power Engineering International.