CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.
Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .
Deliverables
Within the REBUS project a methodology was developed to define the costs and potentials of RES-E technologies in an internal EU electricity market. The methodology supports comparability of costs across EU Member States and provides a sound estimation of the potentials for RES-E that can actually be deployed in the target year. The comparability is especially important when comparing the effects of implementing EU-wide policies for supporting RES-E across Member States.
A uniform, consequent and EU wide accepted method of determining renewable energy potentials and costs is highly recommended.
For the definition of costs a distinction is made between harmonised and non-harmonised costs. The harmonised costs assume the completion of one internal EU electricity market and thus the fact that some cost factors, such as the costs of technology, fuel costs (excluding transportation) and interest rates should be assumed to be equal for market actors in all Member States. The non-harmonised costs are the variable costs of implementing a renewable energy project, which includes all of the cost factors that are by nature different across all countries. The methodology assures a fair comparison of costs across Member States.
The definition of potentials. Available estimations often take into account technical feasibility and market penetration, but do not include problems regarding acceptability or regional planning. For the REBUS-project a methodology has been developed to establish realisable potentials of renewable technologies in which the reducing factors are incorporated. The only barrier left for these technologies is an economic barrier: the moment its cost price (including subsidies or other measures) is competitive a technology will penetrate into the electricity market.
This result gives an insight in expectations and requirements from the energy sector on the effects of burden sharing for renewable electricity.
The renewable electricity targets, negotiated by the European Commission and national governments, will have to be realised by stakeholders (utilities, traders, and consumers of electricity). What is the stakeholders' opinion on the target setting, on the design of a trading system and its practical implementation and monitoring aspects? Utilities and consumer organisations in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been asked to comment on these issues. The utilities take a critical view of their position in the renewable energy market and possible future international trading scheme. The main conclusions from the interviews are:
- Generally, target setting and burden sharing are regarded political questions, on which governments should decide.
- Stakeholders emphasise that it is of vital importance that ambitious targets are supported by a reliable trading system. The role of governments in providing a good monitoring system is stressed; double counting should be avoided.
- There is a general preference for an obligatory over a voluntary target system. Almost all interviewees prefer a fine above other sanctions for penalising non-compliance.
- The general feeling is that international trade between different systems cannot be successful. Doubts are expressed regarding trade between voluntary and obligatory systems. Reciprocity conditions are considered important to prevent for subsidy flows between countries.
- For an international trading system to be successful, harmonisation of the definition of RES-E is regarded essential, and clarity on the definition underlying the current targets is required.
- Targets in the Draft Directive are, to the surprise of most interviewees, quite favourable for the countries under consideration. Several interviewees ask for more transparency on how the EU directive has been developed.
- When asked for their preferences regarding burden sharing options, many interviewees tend to consider what is most favourable for their own country. There are differing opinions on what is a fair division of targets.
To explore the possibilities for achieving European renewable electricity targets a good overview of future costs and potentials per Member State of all types of renewable electricity available on the European market is essential. To assess the burden sharing options within the REBUS model, a cost-potential curve was established for a defined set of RES-E technologies for each EU Member State and for Norway.
The cost potential curves have been based on the best available data sources from national and EU studies and databases. This was complemented by knowledge from several technology and renewable energy policy experts, to obtain the latest insights in potential developments for each individual technology taken into account in this study.
The cost potential curves can be used in future and national EU studies, to harmonise comparability across studies and to gain a better understanding of research outcomes. Naturally, political, technical, and socio-economical circumstances are continuously changing, and new or improved insights in the development of costs and potentials will be obtained. Therefore, the cost potential curves will inevitably be subject to changes in the future. This will be supported by the transparent registration of the actual data used for constructing the current cost potential curves.
The following cases were analysed in the REBUS project:
Target options (different concepts to distribute the overall EU target of 22% RES-E over the Member States):
- Draft Directive: national targets similar to the targets specified in the Draft Directive.
- Flat rate: equal targets for all countries, similar to the average target as set in the draft Directive (including update). For those countries of which the share of RES-E in the base year is higher than this average target, the target for the year 2010 is set equal to the 1997 realisation.
- Related to potential: the individual targets are set according to the total potential of RES-E in the country.
- Equal share per capita: each human being in the EU should have a similar share of its electricity consumption based on renewables.
- Equal growth RES-E: Starting from the 1995 situation, the growth in total electricity production from renewables should be similar in each EU Member State.
Burden sharing options (different concepts to distribute the costs of achieving the overall EU target of 22% RES-E over the Member States):
- Least cost division: the cheapest division of targets over the countries at the costs of achieving the overall EU target.
- Equal costs per GDP: the costs to achieve RES-E targets are divided over the EU Member States according to the Gross Domestic Product of each Member State.
- Equal costs per capita: the costs to achieve RES-E targets are divided over the EU Member States according to the population of each Member State.
Policy cases and sensitivity cases:
- Including Norway in the EU trading system.
- Excluding certain technologies from the EU trading system: excluding municipal solid waste, all waste options, new large hydro and a combination of these.
- Interaction with EU-wide additional support for PV.
- Interaction with specific national support schemes: continuation of feed-in tariffs for wind power in Germany and Spain and interaction with Dutch energy tax.
- Removal of overall cap on the growth in wind power in the EU to simulate unlimited wind power production.
- Lower growth rates for electricity consumption.
The developed 'REBUS model' quantifies the impact of trade in burden sharing mechanisms and the implementation of different rules to setting regional and (inter) national targets for the share of renewable electricity consumption or production. Results are obtained for a range of so-called burden sharing options that reflect differences in economic, social and geographical possibilities to increase the share of renewables in individual geographical regions. The REBUS model furthermore analyses the impact of other supporting mechanisms for renewable electricity on the effects of a burden sharing mechanism.
An important condition of renewable energy policy is often that the target is reached in a cost-effective way. An important means to reach this cost effectiveness is to introduce the possibility of trading. In the REBUS model this is implemented by means of trade in green certificates, which in fact represent different ways of burden sharing. Countries can lower their overall costs of achieving the targets by importing certificates instead of realising (a part of) their target domestically, or (in case of abundant relatively cheap RES-E potentials) export certificates. The REBUS model allows for analysing the benefits of introducing such a trading scheme. Note that in the REBUS model it is assumed that trading occurs through the trading of green certificates, and not of the physical electricity itself.
The main questions that can be answered by the REBUS model include:
- What are the costs of realising (inter) national or regional targets for RES-E?
- What will be the expected price of tradable green certificates in the region?
- What are the cost benefits of interregional trade in tradable green certificates?
- What it the impact of applying different burden sharing rules to achieving RES-E targets?
- Which technologies are likely to penetrate in the coming years on the basis of cost-effectiveness?
- What is the effect of changes in the cost or potential of individual technologies on the penetration of this technology and on the resulting costs of achieving renewable electricity targets?
- What are the effects of other national or regional supporting policies on the certificate price and the costs of achieving targets?
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