July 17, 2018
The Proposals on Main Trends of the Climatic Treaty” (Klimatakkoord) were presented last week in the Netherlands last week. After discussions and additional processing, this document will determine the climate and energy policy of the Netherlands. Should this document be approved, the Dutch climate legislation will be one of the toughest in the world. For us, this project is interesting from the point of view of understanding European approaches to future development of the energy sector. The project defines a purpose of reducing CO2 emissions in the Netherlands by 49% by 2030 and by 95% by 2015 as compared to those figures in 1990. In addition, by 2015, the electrical generation of the country with 17.2 million population would be carbon-neutral.
The objective of 49% emission reduction by 2030 assumes reduction of CO2 emissions by 48.7 megatons within the next 12 years. In the electrical power sector the emissions should be reduced by 20.2 megatons of CO2, in industrial production sector – by 14.3 megatons, in transport sector – by 7.3 megatons, in real estate – by 3.4 megatons and in agriculture – by 3.5 megatons.
The approach to decarbonisation of the real estate segment is of great interest. The entire fleet of buildings (7 million individual houses and 1 million other buildings) will require some sort of refurbishment to improve the environmental stability of the real estate. We are talking about energetic sanation (heat insulation) and gradual refusal of using natural gas used for heating and hot water supplies. New buildings will not be connected to the gas supply networks (there are exceptions for the ones that are already approved), while existing buildings will be gradually transferred to other fuel types. The Netherlands want to “as soon as possible” stop mining gas at the Groningen Gas Field. He heat supply sector will see gradual transfer to renewable energy sources and heat pumps.
Until 2021, approximately 50 000 buildings will have to be refurbished per year, thereafter, the refurbishment rate will have to be raised to 200 000 buildings per annum.
With regard to the energy sector, the document assumes that at least 75 per cent of the power, used in 2030 has to be generated “environmentally friendly”. The authors of the “Main trends” estimated that by 2030, the renewable energy should be generating approximately 84 TW*hr power per annum. This would include 49 TW*hr from sea wind power, while the rest will be generated by surface wind and solar installations of single capacity that exceeds 15 kW.
The table shows that to achieve the set objective by 2030, some 112-14 GW capacity sea wind stations, 6-10 GW land wind stations, and 21-23 GW solar power stations, including the ones on house roofs should be in operation (by 2030, approximately 700 new sea wind turbines, 500 surface wind turbines and 75 million solar panels should have been installed).
These plans envisage operation of 11.5 GW offshore wind stations by 2030 in the Netherlands. Such generating capacity would facilitate approximately 40% of power in the country. Addition of solar and land wind turbine power generation capacities would allow achieving renewable energy source share to 75%.
We should add that last year the European Association of Electrical Energy Euroelectric expressed their intention to turn EU power energy sector into a carbon-neutral system “long before the middle of the century”. In other words, we cannot say that the Dutch plans are far out of the general trend. The published Main trends of climatic treaty forecast that the cost of wind generated power, both onshore and offshore, by 2030 would be 3-4 cents per kilowatt-hour, in solar power generation 0 3-6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
The climate treaty envisages wide use of the “green” hydrogen in industry, transport, energy, and possibly in real estate sector. The installed capacity potential of electrolysis by 2030 is estimated to be 3-4 GW. For development of hydrogen technologies, existing gas infrastructure (to the extent, as far as possible) will be used.
http://renen.ru/dutch-climate-agreement-carbon-neutral-energy-by-2050/