Hydrogen technologies have experienced cycles of excessive expectations followed by disillusion. Nonetheless, a growing body of evidence suggests these technologies form an attractive option for the deep decarbonisation of global energy systems, and that recent improvements in their cost and performance point towards economic viability as well. This paper is a comprehensive review of the potential role that hydrogen could play in the provision of electricity, heat, industry, transport and energy storage in a low-carbon energy system, and an assessment of the status of hydrogen in being able to fulfil that potential. The picture that emerges is one of qualified promise: hydrogen is well established in certain niches such as forklift trucks, while mainstream applications are now forthcoming. Hydrogen vehicles are available commercially in several countries, and 225 000 fuel cell home heating systems have been sold. This represents a step change from the situation of only five years ago. This review shows that challenges around cost and performance remain, and considerable improvements are still required for hydrogen to become truly competitive. But such competitiveness in the medium-term future no longer seems an unrealistic prospect, which fully justifies the growing interest and policy support for these technologies around the world.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2019/ee/c8ee01157e

The role of hydrogen and fuel cells in the global energy system

https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000050288/18451059

Renewable Power-to-Gas: A technological and economic review

A review of computer tools for analysing the integration of renewable energy into various energy systems

Processes causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions benefit humans by providing consumer goods and services. This benefit, and hence the responsibility for emissions, varies by purpose or consumption category and is unevenly distributed across and within countries. We quantify greenhouse gas emissions associated with the final consumption of goods and services for 73 nations and 14 aggregate world regions. We analyze the contribution of 8 categories: construction, shelter, food, clothing, mobility, manufactured products, services, and trade. National average per capita footprints vary from 1 tCO2e/y in African countries to ∼30t/y in Luxembourg and the United States. The expenditure elasticity is 0.57. The cross-national expenditure elasticity for just CO2, 0.81, corresponds remarkably well to the cross-sectional elasticities found within nations, suggesting a global relationship between expenditure and emissions that holds across several orders of magnitude difference. On the global level, 72% of greenhouse ...

Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis

http://www.rug.nl/staff/e.m.steg/stegpromotinghousehold.pdf

Promoting household energy conservation

Modelling energy systems for developing countries

The application of power-to-gas, pumped hydro storage and compressed air energy storage in an electricity system at different wind power penetration levels

Environmental and energy system analysis of bio-methane production pathways : A comparison between feedstocks and process optimizations

This article discusses how renewable and low-carbon energies can serve as mitigation options of climate change in China’s power sector. Our study is based on scenarios developed in PowerPlan, a bottom-up model simulating a countries’ power sector and its emissions. We first adjusted the model to China’s present-day economy and power sector. We then developed different scenarios based on story lines for possible future developments in China. We simulated China’s carbon-based electricity production system of today and possible future transitions towards a low-carbon system relying on renewable and low-carbon energies. In our analysis, we compare the business-as-usual scenarios with more sustainable energy scenarios. We found that by increasing the share of renewable and nuclear energies to different levels, between 17% and 57% of all CO2 emissions from the power sector could be avoided by 2030 compared to the business-as-usual scenario. We also found that electricity generation costs increase when more sustainable power plants are installed. As a conclusion, China has two options: choosing for high climate change mitigation and high costs or choosing for moderate climate change mitigation and moderate costs. In case high climate change mitigation will be chosen, development assistance is likely to be needed to cover the costs.

/pdf/renewable-and-low-carbon-energies-as-mitigation-options-of-56klytux4y.pdf

Renewable and low-carbon energies as mitigation options of climate change for China

The concept of household metabolism was applied to enhance the understanding of the environmental impacts of household consumption in cities during the second phase of the ToolSust project. The household metabolism in four European cities was determined in terms of total energy requirements, including the direct and indirect energy requirement. Use was made of the Energy Analysis Program, EAP, developed at IVEM, to calculate the energy requirement of households. Energy intensities of consumer goods, calculated with country specific EAP databases, were combined with expenditure data to determine the total energy requirements of different types of households. The results are compared and the methodology is discussed in this report.

/pdf/household-metabolism-in-european-countries-and-cities-2y8akjj4ff.pdf

Reinerus Benders

Papers

Modelling energy systems for developing countries

The application of power-to-gas, pumped hydro storage and compressed air energy storage in an electricity system at different wind power penetration levels

Environmental and energy system analysis of bio-methane production pathways : A comparison between feedstocks and process optimizations

Renewable and low-carbon energies as mitigation options of climate change for China

Household metabolism in European countries and cities