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This editorial introduces the fourth volume of the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management. Topics include mean-variance approach of energy systems design, the role of heat savings in smart energy systems, analyses of the German secondary reserve market, options for replacing lignite-fired district heating in plants in Greece with biomass-fired district heating plants based on boilers or cogeneration of heat and power. Topics also include how local Norwegian governments engage in local energy planning and how they differ in approach. Finally, this volume addresses characterisation of the building stock with a view to assessing savings potentials with a case from Belgium.

Danish municipal heat planning empowers municipalities to implement locally appropriate energy solutions that are the best fit for the locality as a whole and the individual consumers served. Supportive policies and actions at the national and local levels have encouraged heat planning that confers significant autonomy to local governments. By examining how power is distributed and shared by different levels of governments in the planning process, this paper investigates how comprehensive energy planning in Denmark has supported the development of highly cost-effective district heating systems. Lessons from the Danish approach to heat planning are considered for their relevance to the United States, where significant technical district heating potential exists, yet remains well outside the typical energy policy discussions. While the specific Danish political context may not be transferable to other locations, the practical aspects of power sharing, socio-economic cost–benefit analyses, and communal decision-making may inform approaches to local heat planning around the world.

Currently, Kenya depends mainly on oil, geothermal energy and hydro resources for electricity production, however all three have associated issues. Oil-based electricity generation is environmentally harmful, expensive and a burden to the national trade balance. The rivers for hydropower and their tributaries are found in arid and semi-arid areas with erratic rainfall leading to problems of supply security, and geothermal exploitation has cost and risk issues amongst others. Given these problems and the fact that Kenya has a significant yet underexploited potential for photo voltaic (PV)-based power generation, the limited—although growing—exploitation of solar PV in Kenya is explored in this paper as a means of diversifying and stabilising electricity supply. The potential for integration of PV into the Kenyan electricity generation mix is analysed together with the sociotechnical, economic, political, and institutional and policy barriers, which limit PV integration. We argue that these barriers can be overcome with improved and more robust policy regulations, additional investments in research and development, and improved coordination of the use of different renewable energy sources. Most noticeably, storage solutions and other elements of flexibility need to be incorporated to balance the intermittent character of electricity generation based on solar PV. ; Currently, Kenya depends mainly on oil, geothermal energy and hydro resources for electricity production, however all three have associated issues. Oil-based electricity generation is environmentally harmful, expensive and a burden to the national trade balance. The rivers for hydropower and their tributaries are found in arid and semi-arid areas with erratic rainfall leading to problems of supply security, and geothermal exploitation has cost and risk issues amongst others. Given these problems and the fact that Kenya has a significant yet underexploited potential for photo voltaic (PV)-based power generation, the limited—although growing—exploitation ...

Kenya mainly depends on oil and hydro sources for electricity supply, however the rivers for hydropower and their tributaries are found in arid and semi-arid areas with erratic rainfall leading to frequent problems in stable delivery of electricity in the country. As for oil-based electricity generation, this is expensive and environmentally harmful. Kenya, however, has great potential for photo voltaics (PV)-based power generation since it is located near the equator and it receives plentiful insolation. PV technology is thus a viable option for electricity generation to mitigate the aforementioned electricity supply challenges, yet the exploitation of solar PV in Kenya is still limited. This working paper analyses both the potential for integration of PV into the Kenyan electricity generation mix and the sociotechnical, economic, political, and institutional and policy barriers, which limit PV integration. These barriers can be overcome with better and more robust policy regulations, additional investments in research and development, and coordination. Most noticeably, storage solutions and other elements of flexibility need to be incorporated to balance the intermittent nature of electricity generation based on solar PV.

This special issue presents some of the latest energy planning-related research as presented at the 2019 International Conference on Energy & Environment (ICEE), University of Minho, Portugal, 2019. In this issue, work is presented which investigates policy initiatives' effects on electricity prices. Other authors apply Modern Portfolio Theory to analyse the energy and environmental policies of the European Union member states. Solar thermal systems are analysed based on a novel costing methodology and lastly carbon dioxide emissions from a Portuguese energy system with further deployment of electric vehicles are assessed.

This 34th volume of the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management includes papers from the 2021 conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES) held October 10-15, 2021, in Dubrovnik, Croatia as well as the 7th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems held September 21-22 in Copenhagen, Denmark and two normal papers. A focus area of this issue is district heating and district cooling systems, with articles addressing resources for district heating and cooling systems, impacts of having individual district heating metres for consumers and approaches to analysing district heating systems. Another focus area is stakeholder involvement where two groups of researchers focus on stakeholders from an energy island perspective as well as from a positive energy district perspective. Both groups note the importance of factoring in stakeholders when devising transition plans. Plans for increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources for the Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian systems are analysed using the Backbone model, finding modest increases in system costs. Lastly, an article sets up an indicator system for assessing environmental performance of European Union member states ranking, e.g., Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian as moderate (Estonia and Latvia) to weak (Lithuania) in terms of sustainable energy performance score, based on 2019 data.

SMILE combines a number of partners to investigate the project pilot islands Samsø in Denmark, Orkney in the United Kingdom and Madeira in Portugal and their ways of becoming carbon neutral through renewable energy (RE) and smart technology demonstration. In this report, we present the outcome of Task 8.5: Policy strategies to support the transition to high-RE systems in Orkney, Samsø and Madeira Island. The task and the corresponding deliverable are part of work package (WP) 8 of the Smart Island Energy System (SMILE) project. The present report concludes Task 8.5 and thereby WP8 by drawing on the previous tasks and deliverable and by elaborating on policy strategies for the SMILE demonstration. Chapter 2 reviews WP8 with its objectives and deliverables to set the context for D8.5. Chapter 3 presents the insights from the demonstrations islands and the resulting policy recommendations, EU emissions framework and replication opportunities in other target locations. Chapter 4 summarizes the presented evaluation and concludes the report, before final remarks conclude the overall WP8.

This special issue presents some of the latest energy planning-related research as presented at the 2019 International Conference on Energy & Environment (ICEE), University of Minho, Portugal, 2019. In this issue, work is presented which investigates policy initiatives' effects on electricity prices. Other authors apply Modern Portfolio Theory to analyse the energy and environmental policies of the European Union member states. Solar thermal systems are analysed based on a novel costing methodology and lastly carbon dioxide emissions from a Portuguese energy system with further deployment of electric vehicles are assessed.

Several countries have recently realized that the present development paradigm is not sustainable from an environmental and energy point of view. The growing awareness of the population regarding environmental issues is pushing governments worldwide more and more to promote policies aiming at limiting harmful effects of human development. In particular, the rapid increase of the global temperature, especially in the polar regions, and the management of human wastes, mainly plastic in seas, are some of the main points to be addressed by these novel policies. Several actions must be implemented in order to limit such issues. Unfortunately, the recent COP 24 Conference was not successful, but hopefully an agreement will be established in 2020 at the COP 26 Conference. The effort performed by policymakers must be mandatorily supported by the scientific community. In this framework, this paper aims at showing that countries worldwide are trying to negotiate an agreement to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, in this paper all the researchers reported can provide quantitative measures of the actions to be implemented in order to address a sustainable and efficient use of energy. Here, innovations in terms of novel efficient and environmentally friendly technologies mainly based on renewable energy sources have been also investigated. The study also highlights different sectors that have been involved for this aim, such as energy conversion systems, urban areas, mobility, sustainability, water management, social aspects, etc. In this framework, specific conferences are periodically organized in order to provide a forum for discussion regarding these topics. In this area the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) conference is the most ordinary conference. The 13th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conference was held in Palermo, Italy in 2018. The current Special Issue of Energies, precisely dedicated to the ...

This document is a summary of the key technical inputs for the modelling of the heat strategy for Europe outlined in the latest Heat Roadmap Europe studies [1, 2]. These studies quantify the impact of alternative heating strategies for Europe in 2030 and 2050. The study is based on geographical information systems (GIS) and energy system analyses. In this report, the inputs for other modelling tools such as PRIMES are presented, in order to enable other researches to generate similar heating scenarios for Europe. Although Heat Roadmap Europe presents a complete heat strategy for Europe, which includes energy efficiency, individual heating units (such as boilers and heat pumps), and heat networks, the recommendations here are primarily relating to the potential and modelling of district heating. Although other solutions will play a significant role in decarbonising the heating and cooling sector, especially heat savings and heat pumps, these are not the focus in this document since many tools and organisations already have the ability to analyse these solutions. In contrast, there is currently a considerable shortage of basic knowledge about the modelling, implementation, and role of district heating in a low-carbon energy system context, so we have focused on this area based on our extensive experience in this area [1-10]. This report includes guidelines on the potential heat demand in European buildings that can be met by district heating as well as some general guidelines on how this district heating demand can be supplied. Typical capacities are recommended for boilers, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, centralised heat pumps, and thermal storage facilities. In addition, the potential heat available from surplus heat and renewable heat sources is outlined. These inputs can be used to model increased penetrations of district heating in the EU energy system in other energy planning tools, such as the PRIMES and JRC-EU-TIMES tools. The key results from the Heat Roadmap Europe studies are that:  Heat savings have a key role to play, but there is a socio-economic limit: after reducing the total heat demand by approximately 30-50%, it will be cheaper to supply heat from a sustainable resource instead of continuing with further savings, which can also enable a higher penetration of renewable energy due to cost shifted from savings and due to the availability of low cost waste heat sources.  District heating should be implemented in the urban areas of Europe where the heat density is high enough.  Heat pumps should be the primary individual heating solution in rural areas, but they will be supplemented by biomass boilers and solar thermal units in suitable locations. The scale and locations of these individual heating solutions has yet to be determined. By implementing these measures, the Heat Roadmap Europe studies have indicated that it is possible to reduce the overall socio-economic costs of the EU energy system while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide emissions and increasing the utilisation of renewable energy. To supplement these technical recommendations, this document also gives a flavour of the key policies which can be used to stimulate the growth of district heating in Europe. The key conclusion from these recommendations is that the European Union has a key role to play in the legislation of district heating, even though the implementation is required at a Member State (MS) level.