Global interest in LNG products and supply chains is growing, and demand continues to rise. As a clean energy source, LNG can nevertheless emit air pollutants, albeit at a lower level than transitional energy sources. An LNG plant capable of producing up to 126 MMTA was successfully developed and simulated in this study. A hybrid life cycle assessment model was developed to examine the social and human health impacts of the LNG supply chain’s environmental air emission formation. The Multiregional Input−Output (MRIO) database, the Aspen HYSYS model, and the LNG Maritime Transportation Emission Quantification Tool are the key sources of information for this extensive novel study. We began our research by grouping environmental emissions sources according to the participation of each stage in the supply chain. The MDEA Sweetening plant, LNG loading (export terminal), and LNG transportation stages were discovered to have the maximum air emissions. The midpoint air emissions data estimated... [more]

Buildings account for 36% of the final energy demand and 39% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Targets for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing building related emissions is an important part of the energy policy to reach the Paris agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. While nearly zero energy buildings are the new norm in the EU, the research is advancing towards positive energy buildings, which contribute to the surrounding community by providing emission-free energy. This paper suggests a definition for positive energy building and presents the framework, elements, and challenges of the concept. In a positive energy building, the annual renewable energy production in the building site exceeds the energy demand of the building. This increases two-way interactions with energy grids, requiring a broader approach compared to zero energy buildings. The role of energy flexibility grows when the share of fluctuating renewable energy inc... [more]

Various environmental policy instruments supporting the development of renewable energy are used on an increasing scale as part of the policy of mitigating climate change and more. In our paper, we examine the influence of environmental policy stringency on renewable energy production in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia for the period 1993−2012 after controlling for gross domestic product per capita growth, CO2 emissions per capita and income inequality. We use the Panel Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive Distributive Lag model to analyze the long-run and the short-run relationship between restrictiveness of environmental policy and renewable energy generation. The results reveal that, in the long run, a more stringent environmental policy has a positive impact both on the increase in the absolute volume of renewable energy production, as well as on the replacement of energy from fossil sources. Our main findings indicate that renewable energy production is positively inf... [more]

The rise of intermittent renewable energy generation, the coming mass penetration of electric vehicles and moves to decarbonise the gas grid are leading to widespread innovation experiments within electricity systems and their associated markets [...]

Many public social housing building stocks were constructed before the introduction of national thermal regulations, and, as a result, in some situations, energy poverty conditioning during severe winter seasons results in little to no heating habits involving active systems in order to improve building thermal performances. Besides rigorous summer seasons, climate change predictions also indicate rigorous winter seasons will occur that will prevail in some Iberia Peninsula locations, worsening this scenario for this Southern European region. Among others, understanding the extension of discomfort in social housing buildings during heating seasons is therefore essential so as to perceive the suitability of the building stock to deal with present and future climate scenarios. Thus, this article presents a thermal comfort assessment during a winter season period applied to two social housing dwellings located in Covilhã, Portugal, inhabited by elderly residents, under realistic heating h... [more]

The accelerated development of information and communication technologies (ICT) over the last three decades has encouraged researchers to analyse the impact of this phenomenon on the labour market. The potential decline in employment resulting from the proliferation of ICT may reduce access to basic energy services and even lead to energy poverty in the form of inability to heat the apartment as needed, allocating a significant part of revenues to expenses related to heating or problems with the timely payment of energy bills. Because access to energy is of fundamental importance for improving the quality of life and is crucial from the point of view of economic development, it is justified to verify the hypothesis that the accelerated development of ICT in EU countries may contribute to an increase in unemployment and, consequently, translate into a higher level of energy poverty. The described research results were obtained thanks to a comparative factor analysis based on secondary d... [more]

Employing maintenance threshold plays a critical step in determining an optimal maintenance policy for an offshore wind system to reduce maintenance costs while increasing system reliability. Considering the limited works on this topic, we propose a two-stage procedure to determine the optimal maintenance thresholds for multiple components of an offshore wind power system in order to minimize maintenance costs while achieving the highest possible system reliability. First, using genetic algorithms, a dynamic strategy is developed to determine the maintenance thresholds of individual components where the cost of maintenance and the rate of failure are critical. Then, fuzzy multi-objective programming is applied to find the system’s optimal maintenance threshold considering all components. A variety of factors including weather conditions, system reliability, power generation losses, and electricity market price are carefully considered to enhance the system’s reliability and reduce the... [more]

Long-term energy scenarios form the basis of energy policy-making. In practice, the use of energy scenarios for the effective creation of energy policy differs in each country. Therefore, the aim of this study is to present two possible scenarios for the development of the Polish energy sector, resulting from the current national policy and international commitments of Poland. The study examined the development of the energy mix in Poland in the 2040 perspective, in accordance with the strategic document Energy Policy of Poland (PEP 2040). The analysis took into account four diagnostic features: electricity production, electricity price, the share of renewable energy sources (RES) in final energy consumption, and CO2 emission reduction. In addition, the analysis allowed for the presentation of the implications for the Polish economy and society after the application of the diversified variant with nuclear energy and the diversified variant with natural gas. Both scenarios assume too sl... [more]

For informing future energy policy decisions, it is essential to choose the correct social discount rate (SDR) for ex-ante economic evaluations. Generally, costs and benefits—both economic and environmental—are weighted through a single constant discount rate. This leads to excessive discounting of the present value of cash flows progressively more distant over time. Evaluating energy projects through constant discount rates would mean underestimating their environmental externalities. This study intends to characterize environmental−economic discounting models calibrated for energy investments, distinguishing between intra- and inter-generational projects. In both cases, the idea is to use two discounting rates: an economic rate to assess financial components and an ecological rate to weight environmental effects. For intra-generational projects, the dual discount rates are assumed to be constant over time. For inter-generational projects, the model is time-declining to give greater w... [more]

While the energy transition of the EU housing stock is now being intensified with the launch of the Renovation Wave, economic inequalities are increasing in many OECD countries, which has effects on housing-related inequalities and the demand of affordable housing. The Renovation Wave is thus an opportunity to improve housing quality for low-income households, but also entails risks for increased rents. In Sweden, the standard of housing is relatively high and energy poverty in multifamily housing is rare, meaning that there are limited social benefits to be achieved from extensive energy retrofitting; moreover, Sweden lacks a social housing sector, which limits protection of the worst-off residents. This paper thus explores whether the limited social benefits of the Renovation Wave weigh up against the risks that it entails for the worst-off in the Swedish context. This is done within a normative framework for just energy transitioning that is developed within the context of the Renov... [more]

The household sector contributes significantly to a country’s energy consumption. Energy carrier expenses are the highest expenditures in Polish household budgets. Households run by individuals aged 60 and older are heavily burdened with energy expenditures. The scientific aim of the research is to present and assess housing conditions, with particular emphasis on energy poverty in households run by individuals aged 60 and older. Multivariate statistical analyses were used to conduct the research objectives (cluster methods, variance methods, regression methods). This paper identifies a new index—one that has been applied to the situation in Poland. Households that consist of elderly people are strongly diversified in terms of housing conditions (including energy conditions). There are concerns that some households are not able to access energy services that are required to satisfy basic human needs, particularly individuals with low levels of education, living on social benefits, with... [more]

There is a need to reduce carbon-based energy and replace it with clean energy in order to counteract the negative effects of climate change. The increase in renewable energy sources may result in savings and the increasing cost of maintaining carbon-based energy. Worldwide involvement is required. The fulfillment of conditions by individual states does not solve the problem. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed economic growth. It turns out that economic growth is not always associated with increased investments in RES (existing or emerging new clean energy points). We have a new epidemiological threat—Delta—which could become large. This will not improve the situation. Germany is an exemplary country for benchmarking in the field of renewable energy. The worrying fact is that Poland, despite economic growth, does not achieve an even growth in RES. Each of us is required to be involved, to be open to innovation and to act in accordance with the energy policy of the European Union. Basic m... [more]

The activities of the poviat are a combination of interrelated factors. The use of natural resources should be carried out in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. The aim of this research was to assess the spatial differentiation of development relationships, the natural environment, and ecology of poviats in Poland, using a synthetic measure. Empirical data were collected in the spatial terms of poviats in Poland. The choice of variables was conditioned by the availability of data of the Central Statistical Office for 2010−2019. The assessment of development of poviats indicates disproportions in terms of development variables, as well as the natural environment and ecology, and the existence of a weak impact of natural conditions for development. Poviats distinguished by a higher level of natural environment are not characterized by a higher measure of development. The reason for the low impact of non-financial conditions on the development of poviats is their d... [more]

The rapid decarbonization of the global economy represents the main challenge for the next decades to combat climate change. The European Union (EU) is leading the negotiation process under the Paris Agreement and recently approved an ambitious unilateral mitigation strategy known as the European Green Deal (EGD). In this paper, we present a novel approach based on the analysis of patent data related to climate change and mitigation technologies (CCMTs) with the aim of describing the evolutionary pattern of the EU in green technology. Based on our analysis, two of our main results deserve attention. First, at the global level, the pace of generation of new green technologies as measured by patent data is slowing down in recent years. This trend, if not inverted, casts some doubts on the economic sustainability of the ambitious environmental targets set by the EC. Second, the current EU technological positioning with respect to green areas appears to be problematic in terms of technolog... [more]

The widely recognised Energiewende, (“energy transition”) in Germany has lost its original momentum. We therefore address the question of how the transition process to a new energy system can be reignited. To do so, we developed the “5Ds approach”, which lays the groundwork for a process analysis and the identification of important catalysts and barriers. Focusing on the five major fields required for the energy transition, we analyse the effects of: (1) Decarbonisation: How can efficiency and renewable energies be expanded successfully? (2) Digitalisation: Which digital solutions facilitate this conversion and would be suitable as sustainable business models? (3) Decentralisation: How can potential decentralised energy and efficiency opportunities be developed? (4) Democratisation: How can participation be strengthened in order to foster acceptance (and prevent “yellow vest” protests, etc.)? (5) Diversification of service: Which services can make significant contributions in the conte... [more]

The life cycle of wind turbines depends on the operation and maintenance policies adopted. With the critical components of wind turbines being equipped with condition monitoring and Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) capabilities, it is feasible to significantly optimize operation and maintenance (O&M) by combining the (uncertain) information provided by PHM with the other factors influencing O&M activities, including the limited availability of maintenance crews, the variability of energy demand and corresponding production requests, and the long-time horizons of energy systems operation. In this work, we consider the operation and maintenance optimization of wind turbines in wind farms woth multiple crews. A new formulation of the problem as a sequential decision problem over a long-time horizon is proposed and solved by deep reinforcement learning based on proximal policy optimization. The proposed method is applied to a wind farm of 50 turbines, considering the availability of... [more]

Due to the large scale of power systems, latency uncertainty in communications can cause severe problems in wide-area measurement systems. To resolve this issue, a significant amount of past work focuses on using emerging technology, including machine learning methods such as Q-learning, for addressing latency issues in modern controls. Although the method can deal with the stochastic characteristics of communication latency, the Q-values can be overestimated in Q-learning methods, leading to high bias. To address the overestimation bias issue, we redesign the learning structure of the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG). Then we develop a damping control twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient method to handle the damping control issue under unknown latency in the power network. The purpose is to address the damping control issue under unknown latency in the power network. This paper will create a novel reward algorithm, taking into account the machine speed deviation, t... [more]

The energy transition currently taking place in the mining regions of the European Union poses many challenges that need to be addressed with a view to 2030 and 2050, of which the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is the key one. Initial results of the research project entitled “Models of a transition to a climate-neutral, circular economy for mining regions under transformation process”, which is developed in parallel with the transition of mining town Brzeszcze, are presented. The challenges, in the context of energy transition, for both the EU and local governments were identified on the basis of EU policies and the experience of the project team from the cooperation with the commune of Brzeszcze. A “research by design” method was used to develop model solutions. In the context of local challenges, there was a discussion of the Green Deal objectives and “greenery” as a tool for transformation and achieving well-being. It was concluded that a comparison of the tangible (mining an... [more]

This article analyses opportunities and threats for the Polish power industry resulting from the EU climate and energy policy. The main assumptions of the policy and directives resulting from it with regard to climate protection and the use of renewable energy sources (RES) in the production of electricity and heat are presented. The negative effects (threats) for Poland in meeting the EU requirements are discussed. The paper also discusses the opportunities for Polish coal, proposing solutions to meet EU directives and to maintain energy security without having to give up Polish coal. Reference is made as well to the plans to liquidate the Polish mining industry, indicating solutions opposing such actions.

Coastal and terrestrial fisheries communities in Europe, often economically marginalised, are likely to face severe impacts as climate change becomes more acute. Although progress on climate mitigation and adaptation from national governments remains slow, local development actions can also address these impacts from the bottom up. In this paper we analyse the Fisheries and Sea Operational Programme 2014−2020 and 36 Local Development Strategies prepared within the framework of this programme for the case of Poland. The strategies, which were prepared by cross-sectoral, area-based partnerships known as Fisheries Local Action Groups, are analysed using a content analysis approach. The aim was to assess the degree to which local stakeholders sought to address the climate challenge. We found that the mitigation of climate impacts and the development of renewable energy did not feature prominently in the analysed documents, suggesting that both central policymakers and local stakeholders in... [more]

The challenges of the world economy and their societies, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic have led policy-makers to seek for effective solutions. This paper examines the oil price volatility response to the COVID-19 pandemic and stock market volatility using daily data. A general econometric panel model is applied to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 infection and death announcements with oil price volatility. The paper uses data from six geographical zones, Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Oceania for the period 21 January 2020 until 13 May 2021 and the empirical findings show that COVID-19 deaths affected oil volatility significantly. This conclusion is confirmed by a second stage analysis applied separately for each geographical area. The only geographical area where the existence of correlation is not confirmed between the rate of increase in deaths and the volatility of the price of crude oil is Asia. The conclusions of this study clea... [more]

Climate mitigation and adaptation planning (CMAP) has recently been implemented across the EU-28 to reduce GHG emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O). Thus, the aim of this study was to provide an overview of GHG emissions from the agricultural sector in the EU-28 from 1990 to 2019, and cluster the EU-28 countries regarding their total GHG emissions. The results emphasize the positive impact of CMAP through a negative trend of the total GHG emissions (−2653.01 thousand tons/year, p < 0.05). Despite the positive and not significant trend of the total CO2 emissions, both CH4 and N2O exhibited a negative and significant trend. At the country scale, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands showed the highest reduction in total GHG emissions, by −282.61thousand tons/year (p < 0.05), −266.40 thousand tons/year (p < 0.05), and −262.91 thousand tons/year (p < 0.05), respectively. The output of the multivariate analysis approach indicates changes in the pattern of GHG emissions between 199... [more]

Uninterrupted availability of energy and power resources is essential for the productivity and smooth functioning of an enterprise. However, constrained by financial resources, smaller firms in developing economies face a plethora of challenges concerning the access to electricity. However, less attention has been paid in the extant literature to explore this phenomenon. The present study investigates the impact of access to electricity on labor productivity in Bangladesh in the presence of electricity constraints, electricity obstacles, and SME firm size. It employs the OLS regression and propensity score matching (PSM) technique for treatment effect to deal with the selection bias and endogeneity issue using the World Bank Enterprise Survey’s cross-sectional firm-level data for 3196 sample firms over the period of 2007−2013. The results provide evidence in support of SMEs’ labor productivity in response to electricity access. Lack of electricity access was partially found to affect S... [more]

In the Hungarian as well as the international literature, debates regarding the methodology used for measuring energy poverty are ongoing. Our contribution sought to develop a methodology that would be relatively easy to measure via survey and have the potential to identify households’ energy vulnerability status beyond the energy poor/non energy poor divide. Based on a representative survey that was carried out in Hungary in 2018, we identified three groups of households: energy poor, non energy poor households, and a so-called transitional group, potentially at risk of energy poverty. In addition to socioeconomic differences, we analysed differences in the mindsets of respondents belonging to these three household groups concerning different aspects of heating energy generation (macrolevel aspects, such as environmental sustainability and energy supply system issues, and microlevel aspects, such as economic and technical issues). By this, the article aims to provide input for further... [more]

Bottom-up energy models are considered essential tools to support policy design of electricity end-use efficiency. However, in the literature, no study analyzes their contribution to support policy design of electricity end-use efficiency, the modeling techniques used to build them, and the policy instruments supported by them. This systematic review fills that gap by identifying the current capability of bottom-up energy models to support specific policy instruments. In the research, we review 192 publications from January 2015 to June 2020 to finally select 20 for further examination. The articles are analyzed quantitatively in terms of techniques, model characteristics, and applied policies. The findings of the study reveal that: (1) bottom-up energy models contribute to the support of policy design of electricity end-use efficiency with the application of specific best practices (2) bottom-up energy models do not provide a portfolio of analytical methods which constraint their capa... [more]