Renewable Energy: Physics, Engineering, Environmental Impacts, Economics and Planning

• Within this economically managed part of the energy sector, renewable energy sources currently provide about 25% of the energy supplied.

• A large part of this renewable energy is in the form of biomass energy, either in food crops or in managed forestry providing wood for industrial purposes or for incineration¹.

• There are two ways to harness solar energy. Passive systems are structures whose design, placement, or materials optimize the use of heat or light directly from the sun. Active systems have devices to convert the sun’s energy into a more usable form, such as hot water or electricity².

• The photovoltaic market enjoys substantial public start-up subsidies (often in the form of subsidized customer investments or attractive buy-back rates for excess solar power).

• Scenario studies are meant to assist the decision-making process by describing a given energy system in its social context, in a way suitable for assessing systems not yet implemented.

chapter 6 — Energy System Planning

• Economic modelling cannot prove its validity not only because the uncertainty of a long-term observation but also the rules of governing society.

• Econometric methods could include such non-linear behaviour by replacing the input-output coefficients with more complex functions.

• The non-linear, non-predictable relations that may prevail in the future.

• Generally, in a democratic society, the more radically a scenario differs from present conditions, the larger the support it requires among the population.

• The aim of modelling may be to optimize either performance or system layout.

• concentrated solar power

• photovoltaic solar power

• wind power

• hydropower

• fossil fuels