The crux of the analysis lies in the choice of location: If installations were built at the sites in Europe that offer the highest power yields, some €45 billion of investment in renewables could be saved by 2030.
This figure already includes the associated extension of the power grid. As a comparison: around €10 billion were invested in new solar and wind power generating installations in Germany in 2012.
"In Europe, just the new photovoltaic capacity alone to be built by 2030 amounts to about 138 gigawatts. If these facilities were erected at the sunniest sites, we could save 39 gigawatts of solar equipment – for the same power yield. The choice of site is crucial to the efficiency and economy of wind power, as well," says Michael Süß, member of the Corporate Executive Committee of Siemens AG and CEO of Siemens’ Energy Sector, against the backdrop of the 1st European Energy Congress in Brussels.
In an ongoing study, Siemens is working in cooperation with the Technical University of Munich to examine energy systems worldwide with the aim of ascertaining their utilization rate of resources, reliability of supply, sustainability and cost-efficiency. Based on the realization that billions are being wasted every year as a result of inefficiencies in worldwide energy systems and markets, the study intends to precisely identify and quantify these losses, and to propose solutions. Siemens will present its findings at the world's most important energy gathering, the World Energy Congress (WEC), to be held in Daegu, South Korea in October 2013.
Siemens has spotlighted four main levers for optimizing energy systems worldwide that can be more or less effective depending on the regional characteristics of the power grids and the power plant fleet:
1. Local optimization of renewable power installations: This means exploiting regional power generation potentials to the full, and involves finding the best sites for solar installations, hydropower storage facilities and wind power farms, and expanding the grids to match.
2. Enhancing the efficiency of the power system as a whole: For instance, the average efficiency of coal-fired power plants in Europe is only 38 percent, whereas modern plants can reach up to 46 percent. Installing more efficient electrical equipment in industry and households would cut CO2 emissions and costs even further.
3. Improvements in the power plant mix: Switching from coal fuel to gas-fired power plants would considerably reduce the volumes of carbon dioxide emitted by conventional power generation. This alone implies an annual CO2 savings potential of 365 million tons in Europe. That is equivalent to half of all emissions in Germany.
4. More use of electric power for energy needs: Instead of generating power locally at low efficiency and burning oil and natural gas to heat buildings, power could be generated more efficiently in large-scale power plants, and high-efficiency electrical heating systems could be used in thermally insulated houses – at least in regions with broad-scale power grid coverage.
Energy systems around the world vary broadly owing to their regional conditions, and are constantly changing. Norway, for instance, thanks to its favorable topology, can rely almost exclusively on hydropower. At the same time it is a major producer of natural gas, most of which it exports. By contrast, very little of its abundant hydropower is presently exported via long-distance transmission lines, despite the great demand for imbalance (i.e. balancing) energy in many countries of Europe.
Looking to the future, Great Britain and Germany have opted for large-scale use of renewable energy resources for their power systems. The UK intends to expand its offshore wind power capacity to meet one quarter of its power demand by 2020, while in Germany wind power’s share is to rise to 15 percent by 2030. Germany wants to generate 80 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2050. Wide fluctuations in power generation due to changing weather conditions thus dictate that large-scale energy storage or high-capacity exchange arrangements with other countries be in place.
The United States is currently experiencing an unprecedented natural gas boom because the high-pace exploitation of non-conventional deposits is making local natural gas up to two-thirds cheaper than in Europe. Gas-fired power plants are thus set to play a major role in U.S. power generation in the future. The U.S. may even be on its way to changing from one of the biggest importers to one of the biggest exporters of fossil fuels. In Asia, by contrast, due to the already high and still growing demand for energy and because of the region's strong dependence on imports, natural gas is currently about five times as expensive as in the U.S.
In its study, Siemens is examining these regional situations with allowance for predicted future developments, and identifying the implications for neighboring energy markets. One of the aims is to determine what approaches are most suitable from national and global economic perspectives for creating reliable and sustainable energy systems with high efficiency but still at affordable power prices.
Further interim findings are to be presented and discussed on 4 June in Moscow, on 9 July in Juno Beach, Florida, on 1 August in Beijing and on 4 September in Abu Dhabi.
A preliminary overall analysis is to be presented in Daegu, South Korea, on 15 October at the "World Energy Congress", is to be held in Daegu, South Korea.
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Subject: PRODUCTION OF WIND MILL ENERGY FROM EXHAUST OF A/C PLANT I am suresh kumar, an income tax officer in chandigarh. I am working in a building which is centrally A/C .I got the idea of using the exhaust wind of Air conditioning plant to rotate the turbine for producing energy .If my idea of producing electricity from windmill which can be rotated by the exhaust of A/c plant comes true ,then there will be an Energy revolution in the areas where there is no wind mill due to lack of constant flow of wind. Till date the wind mill works in only coastal areas and not in places away from coastel regions . The A/c plant works for at least 12 hours and that means the the wind mill can generate energy daily for twelve hours without need of natural wind . In off duty hours if there is natural wind ,the wind mill can produce energy, but for at least twelve hours the exhaust air can rotate the wings of windmill and the air can be utilised for energy production which is otherwise going waste. This is an idea to produce energy by using the exhaust air from Air conditioner in A/C buildings which is otherwise going waste.I just want to let the world know about the utility of Air from Exhaust of Air conditioner which is going waste.By my calculations we can produce energy equal to 12-15% of the total energy consumption in a building having an A/C plant . The cost of Wind mill turbines can be recovered in three years and after that the energy is produced free of cost . In this way we can produce energy in the places far off from coastal areas where till date no wind mill energy is working due to lack of constant flow of wind . By implementing this technique of horizontal wind turbine we can produce 26% cost of the energy of the investment which is needed to start this project and the production is totally green , there is no carbon emmission,no smoke,no pollution and we are only using the wind that otherwise is going waste all over the world. If you so desired ,i can send my project report .It is for all and i want to implement it for the benefit of mankind. Thanks and regards, suresh kumar sureshkito@yahoo.com 0091-9316100764 0091-9468300450
