Stefan Vögele

Impacts of Climate Change on European Critical Infrastructures: The Case of the Power Sector

Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases cause climate change and this change in turn induces various direct impacts, e.g., changes in regional weather patterns. The frequency of heat waves and droughts in Europe is likely to rise. Yet, beyond these immediate effects of climate change, there are more indirect effects: Droughts may cause water scarcity and a lack of water supply which in turn would affect further sectors and critical infrastructures. A rising lack of water supply for cooling purposes, for example, will negatively affect electricity generation in power plants. In this paper we analyse such interplays between climate-change affected sectors. We investigate whether and to which extent power generation and supply in Europe is threatened by climate change because of the higher risk of water supply shortages due to more frequent drought and heat-wave incidences. Our proposed approach cannot only be applied to analyse the climate change effects on individual power plant sites or the overall economy but also on electricity exchanges between countries.

Short-term distributional consequences of climate change impacts on the power sector: who gains and who loses?

Climate change tends to negatively affect the power sector, inter alia, by causing cooling problems in power plants and impairing the water supply required for hydropower generation. In the future, when global warming is expected to increase, autonomous adaptation to climate change via international electricity markets inducing reallocations of power generation may not be sufficient to prevent supply disruptions anymore. Furthermore, the consequent changes of supply patterns and electricity prices might cause an undesirable redistribution of wealth both between individual power suppliers and between suppliers and consumers. This study ascertains changes in European power supply patterns and electricity prices caused by on-going global warming as well as the associated redistribution of wealth for different climate change scenarios. The focus of the analysis is on short-term effects. Our results confirm that autonomous adaptation in the power sector should be complemented by planned public adaptation in order to preserve energy security and to prevent undesired distributional effects.

How Clean is Clean? Incremental versus Radical Technological Change in Coal-Fired Power Plants

In the discussion on innovations for sustainable development, radical innovations are frequently called for in order that the transformation of society to a system perceived as sustainable can succeed. The reason given for this is the greater environmental efficiency of these innovations. This hypothesis is, however, not supported by empirical evidence. Against the background of a globally increasing use of coal-burning power plants and the environmental impacts to be expected, the hypothesis that radical innovations are superior to incremental innovations is reviewed on the basis of fossil fuel power plants. This paper examines the diffusion of incremental and radical innovations in the field of power plants and the basic obstacles with which these innovations were confronted. To give an example, Pressurised Pulverised Coal Combustion (PPCC) as a radical innovation and supercritical coal-fired power plants as an incremental innovation are compared. An ex-post analysis of the German R&D portfolio in the past three decades in the field of power plants environmentally shows that technologies which were radical innovations had great difficulties in becoming accepted by possible investors. The future potential of radical innovations in the field of power plant technology is to be regarded as relatively low, especially due to comparatively high cost-pressure, the reluctance of utilities to take risks and the temporal dynamics of technological progress facilitating incremental innovations on the basis of conventional reference technology. The conclusion for future R&D work in the sector of large-scale power plants is that an innovation is more likely to succeed the more it follows established technological trajectories. In the context of energy market liberalisation, hardly any radical innovations are expected in this field of technology. The findings of this paper may also be helpful in evaluating risks or probabilities of success of technologies being developed. As an example technological trajectories currently favoured in CO2 capture are discussed.

Trends in water demand and water availability for power plants—scenario analyses for the German capital Berlin

The availability of electric power is an important prerequisite for the development or maintenance of high living standards. Global change, including socio-economic change and climate change, is a challenge for those who have to deal with the long-term management of thermoelectric power plants. Power plants have lifetimes of several decades. Their water demand changes with climate parameters in the short and medium term. In the long term, the water demand will change as old units are retired and new generating units are built. The present paper analyses the effects of global change and options for adapting to water shortages for power plants in the German capital Berlin in the short and long term. The interconnection between power plants, i.e. water demand, and water resources management, i.e. water availability, is described. Using different models, scenarios of socio-economic and climate change are analysed. One finding is that by changing the cooling system of power plants from a once-through system to a closed-circuit cooling system the vulnerability of power plants can be reduced considerably. Such modified cooling systems also are much more robust with respect to the effects of climate change and declining streamflows due to human activities in the basin under study. Notwithstanding the possible adaptations analysed for power plants in Berlin, increased economic costs are expected due to declining streamflows and higher water temperatures.

Energy Efficiency and Industrial Output: The Case of the Iron and Steel Industry

The iron and steel industry is one of the most carbon emitting and energy consuming sectors in Europe. At the same time this sector is of high economic importance for the European Union. Therefore, while public environmental and energy policies target this sector, there is political concern that it suffers too much from these policy measures. Various actors fear a policy-induced decline in steel production, and possibly an international reallocation of production plants. This study analyzes the role that input prices and public policies may play in attaining an environmentally more sustainable steel production and how this - in turn - affect total steel output. As we find out for examples of major European steel producing countries, a kind of rebound effect of energy-efficiency improvements in steel production on total steel output may arise.

The future role of CO2-capture as part of a german mitigation strategy

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the role that CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies could play within the scenarios of Germany as a mitigation strategy. As the presentation shows, the use of CCS can represent an interesting mitigation option in view of stringent CO2 reduction goals. The scenarios, performed with the aid of the IKARUS optimization model, however, show that according to cost-efficiency criteria a large number of measures would have to be taken covering all energy sectors. It may be seen that CCS can compete with other mitigation options and in some cases may be more cost-effective. CCS can at best represent one element in an overall strategy. If the existing total power plant capacity in Germany is extrapolated, a considerable number of outdated power plants will have to be replaced in the next 20 years. To make CO2-free power plants available at that time, there is a need to enhance R&D efforts currently in progress. Furthermore, the application of retrofitting measures should also be considered.

Analysis of the energy consumption of private households in Germany using multi-level cross-impact balance approach - Data

Many studies stress the needs of interdependence analysis under the special conditions of multidisciplinary systems that include social systems. This applies, in particular, to scenarios on future energy demand and supply. Using the example of the residential sector in Germany we provide information on factors and their possible outcomes taking multidisciplinary aspects into account. In addition, futures are presented reflecting consistent combinations of the outcomes of the selected factors. These futures can be used as storylines for further analyses (see (S. Vögele, P. Hansen, W-R. Poganietz, S. Prehofer, W. Weimer-Jehle) [1]).

Economic Analysis of Carbon Capture in the Energy Sector

The cost of carbon capture is a crucial factor for the deployment of the technologies in the electricity sector. In general, much higher electricity generation costs arise in case of carbon capture. With an increase of approximately 80 %, lignite-based CCS plants are particularly affected. The CO2 avoidance costs are € 34–38/tCO2 for lignite plants, € 41–48/tCO2 for hard coal plants, and with approx. € 67/tCO2 highest for natural gas plants. This depends on the lower level of CO2 avoided in case of gas-fired power plants. Only when the price of allowances rises to these levels will the use of CCS power plants be cost-effective.

Lead Markets for Clean Coal Technologies: A Case Study for China, Germany, Japan and the USA

Despite the high CO2 emission intensity of fossil and especially coal fired energy production, these energy carriers will play an important role during the coming decades. The case study identifies the main technological trajectories concerning more efficient fossil fuel combustion and explores the potentials for lead markets for these technologies in China, Germany, Japan and the USA taking into account the different regulation schemes in these countries. We concentrate on technologies that have already left the demonstration phase. This is the case for supercritical (SC) and ultra-supercritical (USC) pulverized coal technologies that are already established. The analysis shows that the typical pattern of a stable lead market only applies to a limited extent. In the 1960s and 1970s, the USA has established a lead market for SC und USC technologies. In the meanwhile, Japan has surpassed the United States, although it started as a typical lag market. Japan has caught up in terms of supply factors, China in terms of price, demand and regulation advantage. This supports the hypothesis that - apart from the demand-oriented lead market model – push factors such as R&D activity play a strong role as well. The advantage of Japan mainly stems from its intensive R&D activities. It can also be observed that some other advantages – such as price and demand advantage – are shifting to China. China is practicing a leapfrogging strategy, and has already become a leader in the market segment of low and middle quality boilers, whereas Japan and Germany still dominate the world turbine market. The conclusion is that lead markets may switch over time to markets with high growth rates, although first mover advantages exist for some market segments such as turbines. First movers have a strong technological expertise which is important in the catching up process of late followers, and they may even profit from the growth in lag countries by exporting and cooperation activities. Thus international technology cooperation is a beneficial process for all involved parties.

Cross-impact balance as an approach for the development of consistent storylines for the European energy market

We present a structured scenario method for the development of transparent, plausible and consistent scenarios. By a case study on the development of European energy scenarios, the process of the Cross-Impact-Balance approach will be explained and challenges and advantages will be derived.