Final Report Summary - RISE (Renewable for isolated systems - energy supply and waste water treatment)
The scientific and technical objectives of this project concern the investigation of the possibilities offered by renewable energy sources, mainly solar, wind and biomass, as well as biogas as a by-product of wastewater treatment, for energy supply in isolated areas, focusing on:
- the sustainable development of the countries, with a special emphasis to regions affected by the war crisis;
- the demonstration and reinforcement of the usage of renewable energy potentials by helping the local industries.
- the reinforcement of WB's countries research potential;
- developing and improving tools for operation and control of stand-alone electricity supply systems;
- contributing to the PV, wind, biomass and biogas technology for production of electricity;
- dissemination of the know-how for the potential implementation of renewable and DG sources for energy supply and waste water treatment.
These targets dictated collection of data, their analysis and identification of the needs for the following developments:
- low-cost innovative RES technologies and applications. Innovative decision support and operational tools for a wide implementation of RES in isolated regions for energy supply and wastewater treatment need to be developed.
- case studies in remote regions, non-connected to the electrical grid, that have been particularly affected by the war and also physical islands must be selected. In these regions, the innovative decision support and the operational tools need to be applied.
The results of these applications will be projected to a large scale implementation of RES on a wider scale of isolated regions in these countries.
The main work that was performed and the results that were achieved are the following:
- All the relevant existing studies and information on solar and small hydro potential in specific regions in Croatia and FYROM, were collected and reviewed. Generally, with few exceptions for some months at some locations, there was a good agreement of the values from the regional solar maps and the measured data. Metronome-calculated data also generally agreed well with predictions from the maps. The exceptions were locations for which there was no sufficient density of meteo-stations in the vicinity of the selected location.
- Based on measured wind data the regional map with mean wind speed was generated that included the orography database and assumes homogeneous roughness length of 0.03 m. This map allowed for more precise siting procedure in the same region to calculate the wind potential at any specific place.
- Data for the choice of the technology for anaerobic WWTP was derived. UKIM and BIG analysed the appropriate usage of biogas as an alternative source of energy, the possible re-usage of the effluent (purified) water from the WWTPs for irrigation, as well as calorific value of the biogas and biogas production dynamics.
- In the Tuzla Canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina an extensive list of a total of 13 municipalities was compiled. The results of this analysis gave information on quantity, quality and availability of the biomass form the resource analyzed, and represent incoming data for possible technologies that could be applied at the energy isolated regions. The list of distributed available biomass through out of municipalities of Tuzla Canton as compiled by the UTU and IES was used as basis for visualising the biomass potential in relevant sites of Tuzla canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Three types of thin films of Cuprous oxide were produced and investigated their structural, morphological and optical properties. Followingly, the production was focused on Cu2O Schottky barrier solar cells using the Cu2O thin films. The performance of the Cu2O Schottky barrier solar cells were found to depend on the starting surface material, the type of the junction, post deposition treatment and the ohmic contact material.
- The investigations of the University of Belgrade were focused on the possibility for development of a low energy consumption measuring system for wind technologies, and comparative testing of two measuring methods, further investigations of plasma processing equipment and equivalent circuit and mathematical modelling of DFIG generator.
- The pilot WWTP system consisted of two tanks. In the first one, the anaerobic fermentation was carried out, with the production of biogas. The second tank was filled with bacterial biocarriers, where the final biooxidation of the organic matters would be accomplished. The experiments concluded that the best microbial enzyme for biogas production of 500 cm3, was the combination of cellulase and pectinase.
- The most promising way of exploiting biogas in isolated, but also in grid connected systems was combined heat and power plants (CHPP), where the effectiveness could reach nearly 80 %. Biogas, as the burnable methane produced in digesters, could be used to generate electricity (there are some cases where electricity price equivalent of 6 cents per kWh is reached), heat farm buildings and keep the digesters at operating temperatures. The residue from biogas production had little odor and retained all the fertilizer value of manure.
- A model for decision support tool (RISE-DSS) was developed that was used for investment analysis in selected cases. The work was focused on setup of supporting analyses structure, definition of main external factors, selection of analysis criteria / attributes, investigation of key uncertainties and comparison and selection of risk indicators, selection of adequate multi criteria decision aid / system, choice of risk assessment model and comparison of different risk management options. The results were a set of equations, suitable for programming of the RISE-DSS.
- Detailed analysis of two study cases in Croatia quantitatively demonstrated the advantages of wider implementation of PV, while the obstacles to wider implementation of RES and PV in particular were identified, such as the high initial costs of PV devices and the low level of knowledge -technological, practical, financial, environmental and, particularly, about financing opportunities.
- The proposed PV systems in FYROM, were designed to supply the needs of the isolated locations. Main findings of the analysis included: The pay-back period of the systems is rather long (15 - 25 years, depending on the energy escalation rate), but still, since the estimated (and even guaranteed) lifetime of PV solar cells / modules was rather long at the end of the life-time balance was still positive. The uncertainties of fuel and electricity prices and changes in equipment prices had big effect on the economic performance of the projects, emphasizing the importance of such analyses.
- The waste water treatment itself had immense significance in dealing with waste and preserving the environment, taking into account that the locations were situated in the National Park Mavrovo and the surroundings. The analyses showed that these types of systems allowed significant annual reduction of GHG emissions compared to the reference scenarios - 7.7 tons of CO2 spared each year for study case in Fezlievo Bacilo, for example.
- The eco house in Serbia consisted of residential house, workshop house, mechanical house with the equipment for water supply, artesian well, water pull and the garden. The electricity needs were fulfilled by the wind and solar photovoltaic conversion. Biomass was the dominant heat source. In addition, solar heating was used and a small amount of electricity for security reason and for air conditioning during the summer. The analysis shown that management of energy consumption could reduce the size of electricity storage system, through the categorisation of consumers, regulation of energy consumption profile and optimal peak-demand management.
After reviewing all aspects (technical, ecological, economical, job opportunities, etc.) of possible fuels, based on wood residues, pellets were selected as the optimal biomass source in Bosnia Herzegovina. The selection procedure that ensured the optimal electricity supply architecture was developed.
- ARMINES investigated the application of time-series analysis and mainly artificial intelligence techniques for short-term RES and load forecasting issues with respect to the systems considered in the project.
- ICCS/NTUA developed functions to optimize the scheduling and operation of isolated systems with RES, including the application of battery energy storage systems for static and spinning reserve, based on the forecasted consumption and RES production. Furthermore provided the functional specifications of the control tool demo, based on the analysis of the economic scheduling functions which was analyzed in the project.
- The usage of the new WWT technology called anaerobic-aerobic granular system (AAGS) was tested. The advantages of this type of WWTP compared to the others were: the capability to simultaneously purify municipal wastewaters and organic waste materials from agricultural and industrial nature, produce biogas, eliminate the nitrogen and phosphorus compounds present in the wastewater, small amount if sludge production, and high level of purification.
- The geographic assessment for energy resources and potential consumption for a wide area of Balkan countries was essential in order to create input maps and scenarios for the economic, environmental and social evaluation of potential for renewable energy technologies (RET). These maps revealed potential consumer characteristics, maps with wind, solar, biogas, and biomass resources, as well as a detailed characterization of technologies, social and environmental barriers and distance to the electric grid.
- GIS functions were developed in order to evaluate electric network expansion or reinforcement costs to supply new load locations and load growth.
- GIS tools developed to evaluate visual impact of wind farms, based on visibility functions over a digital terrain model, using potential locations of wind farms for targets and populated places for observers sensitive to the impact. It was also developed a geocomputational model to quantify emission from the several technologies based on the geographical density of consumption and based on typical emission of each technology. By applying the methodologies the final maps of impacts and benefits were created and quantified by country.
- The analysis of the isolated electrical systems based on renewable energy sources demonstrated that on each target location there were social benefits that were tightly connected to the economic benefits. PV is the most competitive RES especially in low population isolated regions and professional DC applications. Feed-in tariffs proposed were 0.6 euro/kWh and government subsidies in the order of 80 % for PV to be competitive. The social benefits to be expected from RES installations could be improvement of quality of life, social cohesion and stability, decrease of rural migration, reduce the conflict consequences. These benefits were tightly connected to the economic benefits, mainly recognized in the following:
- reduce the unemployment rate;
- open new business opportunities;
- provide sufficient income for sustainable development.
The policy strategies for Western Balkan Countries for the integration of RES in order to achieve previous results were:
- existence and activity of an energy agency to coordinate efforts;
- government policies should consider feed-in tariffs of more than 0.6 euro/kWh;
- new installations needed investment subsidies (80 %), rebates and tax incentives in order to overcome high initial cost of the systems;
- use of diesel generators as a source of power supply with high environmental impacts, in remote areas could be removed, with environmental externalities in calculations in favour of RES, compared to grid connected system;
- communicating the benefits of RES should be the prime target and the audiences should be identified;
- non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and non-profit organisations could be useful allies in awareness-raising campaigns;
- apart from local businesses that could be subsidised from the government, the tourist sector could benefit from RES and environmentally friendly tourism (ecotourism and agrotourism);
- citizen participation and awareness rising, education;
-evolution of energy standards in buildings and efficiency;
green electricity labels of locally produced electricity from RES.
- the sustainable development of the countries, with a special emphasis to regions affected by the war crisis;
- the demonstration and reinforcement of the usage of renewable energy potentials by helping the local industries.
- the reinforcement of WB's countries research potential;
- developing and improving tools for operation and control of stand-alone electricity supply systems;
- contributing to the PV, wind, biomass and biogas technology for production of electricity;
- dissemination of the know-how for the potential implementation of renewable and DG sources for energy supply and waste water treatment.
These targets dictated collection of data, their analysis and identification of the needs for the following developments:
- low-cost innovative RES technologies and applications. Innovative decision support and operational tools for a wide implementation of RES in isolated regions for energy supply and wastewater treatment need to be developed.
- case studies in remote regions, non-connected to the electrical grid, that have been particularly affected by the war and also physical islands must be selected. In these regions, the innovative decision support and the operational tools need to be applied.
The results of these applications will be projected to a large scale implementation of RES on a wider scale of isolated regions in these countries.
The main work that was performed and the results that were achieved are the following:
- All the relevant existing studies and information on solar and small hydro potential in specific regions in Croatia and FYROM, were collected and reviewed. Generally, with few exceptions for some months at some locations, there was a good agreement of the values from the regional solar maps and the measured data. Metronome-calculated data also generally agreed well with predictions from the maps. The exceptions were locations for which there was no sufficient density of meteo-stations in the vicinity of the selected location.
- Based on measured wind data the regional map with mean wind speed was generated that included the orography database and assumes homogeneous roughness length of 0.03 m. This map allowed for more precise siting procedure in the same region to calculate the wind potential at any specific place.
- Data for the choice of the technology for anaerobic WWTP was derived. UKIM and BIG analysed the appropriate usage of biogas as an alternative source of energy, the possible re-usage of the effluent (purified) water from the WWTPs for irrigation, as well as calorific value of the biogas and biogas production dynamics.
- In the Tuzla Canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina an extensive list of a total of 13 municipalities was compiled. The results of this analysis gave information on quantity, quality and availability of the biomass form the resource analyzed, and represent incoming data for possible technologies that could be applied at the energy isolated regions. The list of distributed available biomass through out of municipalities of Tuzla Canton as compiled by the UTU and IES was used as basis for visualising the biomass potential in relevant sites of Tuzla canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Three types of thin films of Cuprous oxide were produced and investigated their structural, morphological and optical properties. Followingly, the production was focused on Cu2O Schottky barrier solar cells using the Cu2O thin films. The performance of the Cu2O Schottky barrier solar cells were found to depend on the starting surface material, the type of the junction, post deposition treatment and the ohmic contact material.
- The investigations of the University of Belgrade were focused on the possibility for development of a low energy consumption measuring system for wind technologies, and comparative testing of two measuring methods, further investigations of plasma processing equipment and equivalent circuit and mathematical modelling of DFIG generator.
- The pilot WWTP system consisted of two tanks. In the first one, the anaerobic fermentation was carried out, with the production of biogas. The second tank was filled with bacterial biocarriers, where the final biooxidation of the organic matters would be accomplished. The experiments concluded that the best microbial enzyme for biogas production of 500 cm3, was the combination of cellulase and pectinase.
- The most promising way of exploiting biogas in isolated, but also in grid connected systems was combined heat and power plants (CHPP), where the effectiveness could reach nearly 80 %. Biogas, as the burnable methane produced in digesters, could be used to generate electricity (there are some cases where electricity price equivalent of 6 cents per kWh is reached), heat farm buildings and keep the digesters at operating temperatures. The residue from biogas production had little odor and retained all the fertilizer value of manure.
- A model for decision support tool (RISE-DSS) was developed that was used for investment analysis in selected cases. The work was focused on setup of supporting analyses structure, definition of main external factors, selection of analysis criteria / attributes, investigation of key uncertainties and comparison and selection of risk indicators, selection of adequate multi criteria decision aid / system, choice of risk assessment model and comparison of different risk management options. The results were a set of equations, suitable for programming of the RISE-DSS.
- Detailed analysis of two study cases in Croatia quantitatively demonstrated the advantages of wider implementation of PV, while the obstacles to wider implementation of RES and PV in particular were identified, such as the high initial costs of PV devices and the low level of knowledge -technological, practical, financial, environmental and, particularly, about financing opportunities.
- The proposed PV systems in FYROM, were designed to supply the needs of the isolated locations. Main findings of the analysis included: The pay-back period of the systems is rather long (15 - 25 years, depending on the energy escalation rate), but still, since the estimated (and even guaranteed) lifetime of PV solar cells / modules was rather long at the end of the life-time balance was still positive. The uncertainties of fuel and electricity prices and changes in equipment prices had big effect on the economic performance of the projects, emphasizing the importance of such analyses.
- The waste water treatment itself had immense significance in dealing with waste and preserving the environment, taking into account that the locations were situated in the National Park Mavrovo and the surroundings. The analyses showed that these types of systems allowed significant annual reduction of GHG emissions compared to the reference scenarios - 7.7 tons of CO2 spared each year for study case in Fezlievo Bacilo, for example.
- The eco house in Serbia consisted of residential house, workshop house, mechanical house with the equipment for water supply, artesian well, water pull and the garden. The electricity needs were fulfilled by the wind and solar photovoltaic conversion. Biomass was the dominant heat source. In addition, solar heating was used and a small amount of electricity for security reason and for air conditioning during the summer. The analysis shown that management of energy consumption could reduce the size of electricity storage system, through the categorisation of consumers, regulation of energy consumption profile and optimal peak-demand management.
After reviewing all aspects (technical, ecological, economical, job opportunities, etc.) of possible fuels, based on wood residues, pellets were selected as the optimal biomass source in Bosnia Herzegovina. The selection procedure that ensured the optimal electricity supply architecture was developed.
- ARMINES investigated the application of time-series analysis and mainly artificial intelligence techniques for short-term RES and load forecasting issues with respect to the systems considered in the project.
- ICCS/NTUA developed functions to optimize the scheduling and operation of isolated systems with RES, including the application of battery energy storage systems for static and spinning reserve, based on the forecasted consumption and RES production. Furthermore provided the functional specifications of the control tool demo, based on the analysis of the economic scheduling functions which was analyzed in the project.
- The usage of the new WWT technology called anaerobic-aerobic granular system (AAGS) was tested. The advantages of this type of WWTP compared to the others were: the capability to simultaneously purify municipal wastewaters and organic waste materials from agricultural and industrial nature, produce biogas, eliminate the nitrogen and phosphorus compounds present in the wastewater, small amount if sludge production, and high level of purification.
- The geographic assessment for energy resources and potential consumption for a wide area of Balkan countries was essential in order to create input maps and scenarios for the economic, environmental and social evaluation of potential for renewable energy technologies (RET). These maps revealed potential consumer characteristics, maps with wind, solar, biogas, and biomass resources, as well as a detailed characterization of technologies, social and environmental barriers and distance to the electric grid.
- GIS functions were developed in order to evaluate electric network expansion or reinforcement costs to supply new load locations and load growth.
- GIS tools developed to evaluate visual impact of wind farms, based on visibility functions over a digital terrain model, using potential locations of wind farms for targets and populated places for observers sensitive to the impact. It was also developed a geocomputational model to quantify emission from the several technologies based on the geographical density of consumption and based on typical emission of each technology. By applying the methodologies the final maps of impacts and benefits were created and quantified by country.
- The analysis of the isolated electrical systems based on renewable energy sources demonstrated that on each target location there were social benefits that were tightly connected to the economic benefits. PV is the most competitive RES especially in low population isolated regions and professional DC applications. Feed-in tariffs proposed were 0.6 euro/kWh and government subsidies in the order of 80 % for PV to be competitive. The social benefits to be expected from RES installations could be improvement of quality of life, social cohesion and stability, decrease of rural migration, reduce the conflict consequences. These benefits were tightly connected to the economic benefits, mainly recognized in the following:
- reduce the unemployment rate;
- open new business opportunities;
- provide sufficient income for sustainable development.
The policy strategies for Western Balkan Countries for the integration of RES in order to achieve previous results were:
- existence and activity of an energy agency to coordinate efforts;
- government policies should consider feed-in tariffs of more than 0.6 euro/kWh;
- new installations needed investment subsidies (80 %), rebates and tax incentives in order to overcome high initial cost of the systems;
- use of diesel generators as a source of power supply with high environmental impacts, in remote areas could be removed, with environmental externalities in calculations in favour of RES, compared to grid connected system;
- communicating the benefits of RES should be the prime target and the audiences should be identified;
- non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and non-profit organisations could be useful allies in awareness-raising campaigns;
- apart from local businesses that could be subsidised from the government, the tourist sector could benefit from RES and environmentally friendly tourism (ecotourism and agrotourism);
- citizen participation and awareness rising, education;
-evolution of energy standards in buildings and efficiency;
green electricity labels of locally produced electricity from RES.
