Extra - Newsletters

November 2010

ECN Policy Studies carries out energy studies in the field of energy and climate change. The objective is to enhance insights in energy consumption, energy markets, objectives of energy policy and policy instruments and to contribute in a significant and independent manner to better policy decisions in the field of energy.

The printable version of the newsletter can be downloaded here.

Selected projects

National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP)

The National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs) are documents in which European Member States explain how they intend to reach their renewable energy targets for the year 2020 and how they shape the paths towards them. ECN has extracted key data from the published National Action Plans of 21 EU Member States and has made these available for further analysis and comparison in a database. The main findings have also been summarised in the following data report: 'Renewable Energy Projections as Published in the National Renewable Energy Action Plans of the European Member States'. The report integrates and aggregates the renewable energy projection data from the individual European countries, presenting tables in various cross-sections and offering graphical representations of the data. Derived indicators such as average annual growth, full load hours for electricity options, per capita and per area indicators, are also presented. The database contains energy consumption and renewable projections up to 2020 for the 21 countries and is available for download in CSV format at the below-mentioned website. When the data from the missing Member States become available, they will be incorporated into both the database and the data report. The work has been financed by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Client:        European Environment Agency (EEA)
Contact:     Luuk Beurskens
Website:    http://www.ecn.nl/nreap

Investigating the impacts of a large-scale rollout of electric vehicles on the grid infrastructure in Europe

The rollout of electric vehicles (EVs) and especially plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) will become a reality very soon. Currently, it is still unknown how users will react to the changed usage characteristics of the novel transportation technologies that will be required to accommodate such a rollout. Grid for vehicles (G4V), a project funded within the 7^th Framework Programme of the European Commission, aims to accomplish a transition from isolated projects in the different Member States towards a joint European approach. The G4V consortium consists of leading European utility companies and research institutes from the field of electrical engineering, smart grids and policy research. This project will use an analytical method to evaluate the impact of a large-scale introduction of EVs on the grid infrastructure and develop a visionary ‘road map’ for the year 2020. ECN Policy Studies is work package leader of the study of the anticipated social impacts of a large-scale rollout of EVs in the EU. To achieve the highest environmental benefits of EVs, they should be charged by electricity produced from renewable energy sources. However, the intermittent nature of renewable energy requires changes in the traditional charging frequency preferred by the consumer. We will analyse how the charging constraints by electricity suppliers would influence consumer behaviour and under which circumstances consumers would be willing to accept them.

Client:        European Commission, 7^th Framework Programme
Contact:     Ingo Bunzeck
Website:    www.g4v.eu

Evaluation of the energy performance of new dwellings

Since 1995 new dwellings in the Netherlands must meet the energy performance requirements set out in the building code. For the first time ECN and Rigo have evaluated this requirement for new dwellings, especially in view of the tightening as of January 2006, in which the energy performance coefficient (EPC) was lowered from 1.0 to 0.8. For this evaluation, ECN has consulted many companies that are involved in building new dwellings to learn about their experiences. The EPC is an accepted part of the building practice. However, requirements are met with easy measures and not with building concepts for low energy use. Moreover, there is almost no enforcement of the requirements. ECN has also asked households in newly built dwellings about their satisfaction and asked them to read their meter. The energy use of these houses, together with information about their heating behaviour or taking showers makes it possible to evaluate the effect of the tightened EPC on their energy use. The energy saving ranges from 1 to 15%, which is somewhat lower than the anticipated 20% (from 1.0 to 0.8). It must also be noted that occupants in new houses have complaints about the ventilation system, some of them relating to noise hindrance. Many health related complaints are linked to the presence of balanced ventilation.

Client:        Woning Wijken Integratie (WWI)
Contact:     Marijke Menkveld
Website:    http://www.ecn.nl/publicaties/PdfFetch.aspx?nr=ECN-E--10-043 (in Dutch)

11 October 2010: International expert meeting on low-carbon development at ECN

Technical assistance in low-carbon development is a key condition for implementation of the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009. Many organisations have started programmes to provide technical assistance, using their own insights and different methodologies. These activities are welcome from a climate perspective, but lack of coordination can easily lead to overlap, conflicting work and reinventing the wheel. To address this, ECN is a founding member of the Coordinated Low Emissions Assistance Network (CLEAN), which aims to improve communication and coordination of independent organizations that are assisting developing countries with preparing and implementing  low emission development plans and strategies. On October 11^th, ECN hosted a major CLEAN expert meeting in Amsterdam. Eighteen professionals from a wide range of organizations came together to exchange practical experiences with low carbon development planning in developing countries. The discussions and break-out sessions were lively and interesting and led amongst others to the identification of common challenges such as a lack of support by key decision makers and the need for further analysis of the macro-economic benefits of low carbon development paths. Concrete outcomes included an initiative to do a comparison of methodological approaches to low carbon development planning. Feedback from the participants about the meeting was very positive, as it created a safe space for exchanging experiences.

Contact:     Laura Würtenberger
Website:    http://openei.org/CLEAN

MONITweb update

MONITweb is the publicly available internet version of the MONIT system developed by ECN Policy Studies. MONIT is the Dutch abbreviation of ‘Monitoring the Development of National energy use, Information and Trend analysis’. MONITweb allows you to generate your own graphs and tables of the Dutch energy use and emissions from 1990 up to the present and also offers the option to include future years based on various scenarios. The results of the Reference Projections Energy and Emissions 2010-2020 are currently available. Compared to the previous version, MONITweb has been extended with new themes. The themes that can be selected are: (1) Energy balance and CO₂ emission, which provides an overview of the sectoral energy use in the Netherlands, including the corresponding CO₂ emission; (2) Renewable Energy, which provides an overview of the Dutch renewable energy production; (3) Means of production of electricity, which provides an overview per sector and per type of installation of the Dutch electricity production; (4) Greenhouse gas emissions, which provides an overview per sector of the Dutch emission of CO₂ (carbon dioxide), CH₄ (methane), N₂O (nitrous oxide), HFCs, PFCs and SF₆; (5) Air-polluting emissions, which provides an overview per sector of the Dutch emission of NO_x (nitrogen oxides), SO₂ (sulphur dioxides), NH₃ (ammonia), NMVOC (volatile organic compounds, excluding methane) and PM₁₀ (particulate matter). The interface of MONITweb has also been restyled. As of yet, only the Dutch version of MONITweb is available.

Client:        Dutch National Government
Contact:     Cees Volkers
Website:    http://monitweb.energie.nl/ (in Dutch)

Symposium - Framing development and climate

Over recent years, the climate and development policy agendas have been under budgetary and political pressure, leading to many changes. At the same time, climate and development are increasingly discussed and considered simultaneously. On October 12^th, ECN organized a mini-symposium on this recent trend of merging policy agendas for climate and development policy. The symposium took place in the reading room of the stately Royal Institute for the Tropics (KIT) in Amsterdam and brought together policy makers, international practitioners and academics. Chaired by Bert Metz, three keynote speeches were delivered by three acclaimed experts, followed by panel and audience discussions. Building on a short background paper, discussions covered the rationale and drivers for merging both agendas, effectiveness of focusing on the combination and consequences of different ways of framing development and climate for North-South assistance. Lively discussions hopefully contributed to informing policymakers and thinkers, and inspired negotiators and practitioners in both the climate and the development worlds.

Contact:  Xander van Tilburg
Website: Symposium website

BOLK 2010

The Dutch research programme on Air and Climate (BOLK was established by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) to investigate the extent to which climate policy can contribute to improving Dutch air quality in 2020. The Ministry uses the information of the BOLK Programme in the preparation of Dutch climate and energy packages and in establishing the Dutch position with regard to the revision of national emission ceilings. A study has been conducted covering separate in-depth studies into the co-impacts of specific climate measures in the Netherlands. These include the deployment of bioenergy in small to medium-scale combustion installations and in combined heat and power installations, biofuels in road transport, and CCS in power generation and industry. The BOLK Programme has shown that there are substantial net co-benefits from all 2020 climate packages under consideration, especially for SO₂ and NO_x emissions; the co-benefits are smaller for particulate matter emissions (PM₁₀). However, there are limited disbenefits for non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) and ammonia emissions (NH₃). Because not all climate measures have co-benefits for air polluting emissions, climate policy packages by definition do not necessarily lead to improvement in air quality. To guarantee that a certain emission level or air quality standard will be met everywhere in a certain year, specific air quality policies (air quality limit values, emission limit values, emission ceilings) will still be needed. The greatest uncertainty in the estimates of the co-impacts is caused by the fact that climate policy measures needed to meet climate and energy targets have not yet been approved by the Dutch cabinet and parliament.

Client:        PBL/VROM
Contact:     Koen Smekens
Website:    Dutch_Policy_Research_Programme_on_Air_and_Climate.html