Decentralised Energy Futures: The Changing Emissions Reduction Landscape

Abstract

The world is witnessing an energy revolution as renewables become more competitive and energy security becomes a high priority for an increasing number of countries. This development is changing the point along the supply chain ripe for reducing emissions. Whereas carbon capture and storage (CCS) coupled to coal or gas power production offers the potential to decarbonise the current centralised power systems, this relies on a significant increase in electrification to achieve deep emission reductions beyond the power sector, including industrial emissions and transportation. At the same time there is a trend towards decentralised industrial processes, e.g., driven by cost reductions in decentralised production systems and miniature processing plant. New strategies for reducing emissions from decentralised industrial and energy emission point sources will be increasingly important. This paper evaluates different emission reduction strategies that may be relevant to a decentralised energy and manufacturing future, including increased electrification, energy storage, renewable energy and renewable feedstock. Systemic opportunities or barriers and considerations of policy and decentralised decision-making are examined.

Towards a smart grid power system in Brazil: Challenges and opportunities

“…The concept of decentralization [26] is strongly "linked to decarbonization and digitalization since the most of the generation units are RESbased plants that must be coordinated in order to achieve security and efficiency". The importance of both concepts, i.e., decentralization and decarbonization of the power sector are also highlighted in [33].…”

Power Market Formation for Clean Energy Production as the Prerequisite for the Country’s Energy Security

“…Table 1, which follows, shows a comparative analysis of the technical, economic, and environmental characteristics of oxygen combustion technologies and combined steam-gas cycle [25,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. The competitive technology for oxy-fuel combustion is the thermodynamic cycles used in the combined cycle power plants which are characterized by high efficiency and can significantly reduce thermal emissions into the atmosphere due to the long stay of the fuel-air mixture at high temperatures [30][31][32][33]. Unlike a combined cycle power plant, the oxygen-fuel energy complex is semi-closed.…”

In Situ Generated Yb2Si2O7 Environmental Barrier Coatings for Protection of Ceramic Components in the Next Generation of Gas Turbines

“…Alone the substitution of heavy fossil fuels by natural gas can decrease the related emissions in ≈50%. [ 1–4 ] Nevertheless, a developing interest has been shown for carbon‐free sources as ammonia and liquid hydrogen, which are potential fuel alternatives to produce energy with a cleaner emission profile. [ 5 ]…”

“…Alone the substitution of heavy fossil fuels by natural gas can decrease the related emissions in ≈50%. [1][2][3][4] Nevertheless, a developing interest has been shown for carbon-free sources as ammonia and liquid hydrogen, which are potential fuel alternatives to produce energy with a cleaner emission profile. [5] Besides the compactness and low maintenance costs, gas turbines can operate with versatile fuel sources, which make them a natural choice for the efficient production of energy.…”