emissions from energy use of just above 40% until 2020 and just above 70% until 2030 from the 1990 level for all energy use except aviation and international navigation that are not included in the scenario and vision.
emissions
The vision follows the target proposed by a large number of NGOs and the European Parliament of 25% renewable energy in 2020. The target for 2030 is 57% and in 2040 above 98%.
The growth in windpower have been strong in recent years, with capacities added of about 9000 MW/year in recent years for the EU. This growth is expected to continue with growth of 10000 MW/year until 2020 and then 14,000 MW/year until 2040. The European wind industry has the capacity to develop windpower much faster, but the siting etc. seems to be the limiting factor. Then there will be
Solar heating as well as solar electricity are expected to play large roles. Solar heating can cover at 10-30% of the heating demand, and more if seasonal storage is introduced. The development is expected to continue from current trends.
The solar heating development is expected to start with the current large expansion that was 2.7 times in the period 2005 - 2010 and then continue with the same increase rate until 2020, when there will be 360 mill. m2 solar collectors. Then we expect a slightly slower large-scale increase leading to 1 billion m2 in 2030 and about 2 billion m2 by 2040 equal to 4.1 m2/person by 2040. The development after 2010 is considerably stronger than forecasted by EREC. The development after 2030 will require some energy storages of 1-3 months in some (Northern) parts of EU, to reach the expected solar coverage of 1/3 of buildings demand for space heating and hot water.
While the biomass growth has been lower than expected for instance in the EU White Paper for Renewable Energy from 1997, use of solid biomass has grown substantially from a level of 2100 PJ in 2000 for the EU-15, and is expected to grow further to 4100 PJ in 2020 in the EU-15, a limit proposed by the German Advisory Council on Global Change in 2003. The limit for the 12 new countries is set to 1800 PJ, following other estimates, and a total for EU of 5900 PJ.
For hydropower is expected a 20% growth for EU-15. This is similar to the growth expected in the EU White Paper for Renewable Energy, but it is only expected to be realised by 2020. For the "new" countries is expected about 65% growth in average, including renovation of many smaller hydropower plants that were abandoned 1945-1990. The total potential in the new countries is substantially bigger than that, but many of the proposed large-scale hydropower projects are not included because of their problematic environmental effects.
The use of geothermal energy for heating and electricity is expected to produce 1400 PJ of energy in 2040 for all EU countries, primarily for heating. This is lower than the potential identified by EREC in its "Rethining2050" report from 2010, because in the INFORSE-Europe vision is only included about 1/3 of the additional long-term potential in "Rethinking2050", as this is somewhat undertain, such as the use of heat from hot dry rock.
Nuclear energy is expected to be phased out as the current nuclear reactors are stopped because of age, safety problems etc. This is expected to happen mainly 2015-2025. For fossil fuels are expected a gradual phase-out until 2040. A change from coal to gas is expected in the period 2010 - 2020, and a closure of primarily coal fired power plants 2010 - 2030.For space heating is expected a rapid phase out of oil and coal heating followed by a replacement of gas heating with district heating and heat pumps.
The energy conversion system will also have to be changed. The electric grid is likely to increase in importance, because electricity will also be used for transport, directly or via conversion to hydrogen, and because it will be used for heating via the use of heat-pumps. Direct electric heating will be phased out. The large dependence on intermittent electricity supply makes it necessary to have flexible electricity consumption and energy storage in some form. It is expected that use of current storage in hydropower, pump-storage etc. combined with more flexible electricity consumption for heat via heat pumps and for hydrogen can provide the necessary regulation until 2025 and longer for the new EU countries. This include combinations of cogeneration (CHP) plants with heat-pumps to supply district heating. When there is over-supply of electricity from solar and wind, the combined CHP+heat pump plants change from producing electricity to consuming electricity, while still giving the heat users the necessary heat, and without loosing efficiency, which would happen if they turned to single production of heat in windy periods. Storage in electric cars and demand side management shall give additional flexibility.
Energy trade is expected to be much less than today, and if the efficiency potentials are realised EU might not be an energy importer after 2040. Some energy import is expected for some of the new EU countries, but only in the order of 10-15% of today’s level. The import is expected to be mainly electricity and could be covered with electricity import from other EU countries.
The EU-27 Sustainable Energy Vision- a Transitionto 100 % Renewable Energy in the EU until 2040- was presented on December 2,2010 in Brussels by Gunnar Boye Olesen.Download the presentation at theevent's website.