Possible bottlenecks in clean energy transitions: Overview and modelled effects – Case Finland

Hyvönen, Johannes; Koivunen, Tero; Syri, Sanna

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137317

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…During implementation, care must be taken to consider the infrastructural challenges, such as the building's social function [37], the building conditions, or the building's historic preservation. Even if a vast expansion of rooftop PV is desired, it is questionable whether it is applicable due to the dependence on solar PV module components and their raw materials [64]. The temporal patterns of the RTP highlight that capacity expansion no longer makes sense after a certain point because, on the one hand, the surplus is substantial at certain times, and on the other hand, deficits cannot be paid off.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Satellite Data for Estimating Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential

Sander,

Schindler,

Jung

2024

Remote Sensing

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Rooftop solar photovoltaics can significantly contribute to global energy transitions by providing clean, decentralized energy without the need for new land, thereby avoiding land-use conflicts. It serves as a valuable complement to other renewable-energy sources and is expected to play a crucial role in future electricity systems. Due to the spatiotemporal variability in the solar radiation on roof surfaces, it is essential to determine the potentials of the rooftop photovoltaics and its variations in specific regions. In Germany, this potential was assessed in 5 km × 5 km zones, as well as at the federal-state and national levels. High-quality satellite and reanalysis data were used to determine the power output of the solar photovoltaics. Additionally, high-resolution (2 m × 2 m) European Settlement Map data, calibrated with solar cadastre data, were utilized to evaluate different scenarios. The results show that the potential is concentrated in larger urban areas and the southwestern part of Germany due to the availability of rooftop space and solar radiation. Overall, the national rooftop areas are substantial across all scenarios, ranging from 2100 to 4500 km2. The applied methods and scenarios provide a straightforward way to reveal the spatiotemporal variability and define realistic ranges of the solar photovoltaic potential without requiring detailed information about each building. However, assessing the rooftop photovoltaic potential remains challenging and uncertain due to the lack of large-scale, high-resolution data on building characteristics and the complexity of the solar radiation distribution in urban environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Satellite Data for Estimating Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential

Sander,

Schindler,

Jung

2024

Remote Sensing

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“…For instance, the growing share of wind and solar generation in the energy sector is making the continuous process of balancing electricity supply with demand an increasingly difficult task, as 2.4 GW (75% increase) of new wind turbines were implemented in Finland in 2022 alone [15]. This is made even more challenging as new technologies, such as energy storage Energies 2024, 17, 1538 2 of 17 and power-to-x, are not yet adequately cost-effective to be widely implemented and solely provide sufficient flexibility to support variable renewable generation [16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as the importance of utilizing forests for carbon sinks and storage grows [23,24], studies have shown that the sustainable procurement of biomass is becoming an increasing concern [25,26], which could become particularly problematic for countries overly relying on biomass in their climate strategies. For instance, prior research has highlighted how high biomass usage in the national carbon neutrality strategy of Finland could significantly reduce available carbon sinks in the land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector [16], which plays a fundamental role in the country's plan to attain net zero emissions by 2035 [27,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On another front, the rapid increase in clean energy technologies is also increasing the demand for critical raw materials and other minerals at an unprecedented rate [17,18,29], with the IEA predicting the demand for lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements (REEs) to increase by 42, 21, and 7 times by 2040, respectively, as well as lead to the demand for copper more than doubling during this time [18]. As these minerals are essential for the manufacturing of technologies such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, Li-ion batteries, electrolysers, and electricity networks [16,18], their resource adequacy and high import reliance on non-European countries is becoming an increasingly significant concern for many EU countries [29,30] which aim to extensively incorporate clean energy technologies in the coming years to attain climate and energy policy goals. The importance of resource adequacy and energy security has also been emphasized by both recent conflicts in Europe and by the 2018 trade war between the US and China, both incidents that highlight the risks related to import reliance in energy policy and national climate strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review of Climate Strategies in Northern Europe: Exposure to Potential Risks and Limitations

Hyvönen,

Koivunen,

Syri

2024

Energies

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Several northern European countries have announced ambitious plans to become carbon neutral already before the year 2050. Recent research has, however, highlighted how potential bottlenecks in raw material and resource availability could significantly delay or hinder wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) expansion and continued biomass usage in parts of Europe. To address this issue, this paper assesses how exposed the national energy and climate plans (NECPs) of Finland, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark are to resource limitations and techno-economic risks by reviewing and analysing 2030 NECP targets compared to statistical energy use data in these countries. The results indicate that the NECPs of Denmark and Germany are particularly exposed to risks related to global raw material availability, as Denmark plans to rapidly grow the share of wind and solar PV in electricity generation to 81% and 13% by 2030, respectively, followed by Germany, which outlines a 39% and 16% share of wind and solar PV in its national climate strategy. The NECPs of Finland and Germany are also shown to be vulnerable to limitations in biomass availability, as there is a significant disparity between the projected biomass usage and legally binding European Union (EU) targets for land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector emissions in 2030 in these countries.

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Cross-border impacts of climate change affect the energy transition: Insights from the Finnish energy sector

Groundstroem

2023

Climatic Change

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The world is currently in the midst of an energy transition, in which renewable and low-carbon energy is replacing the use of fossil fuels. Along the way, however, planning for and adapting to impacts of climate change is urgently needed, as these are projected to intensify in the future, despite ambitious mitigation efforts. Since the low-carbon energy transition is likely to involve many international interdependencies and connections between countries and regions, assessments of cross-border impacts of climate change, i.e., consequences of climate change that occur remotely from the location of their initial impact, are of utmost importance to ensure the decarbonisation of society is safe and sustainable. This paper utilises expert interviews and a general morphological analysis with the shared socioeconomic pathways to situate national decarbonisation efforts within a global context and identify cross-border impacts of climate change that may affect the energy transition, using the Finnish energy sector as a case study. Interestingly, many of the global development trends that were found to have a boosting effect on the Finnish energy transition, also increased the risk from cross-border climate change impacts, stressing the importance of rigorous adaptation planning. The findings affirm the need for studying national energy transitions from a global perspective and highlight the tendency of climate change impacts to be transmitted across borders via complex pathways. The study offers valuable insights into the importance of cross-border impacts for adaptation planning pertinent to any country or region currently engaged, or planning to engage, in the global low-carbon transition.

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Possible bottlenecks in clean energy transitions: Overview and modelled effects – Case Finland

Cited by 11 publications

References 26 publications

Application of Satellite Data for Estimating Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential

Application of Satellite Data for Estimating Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential

Review of Climate Strategies in Northern Europe: Exposure to Potential Risks and Limitations

Cross-border impacts of climate change affect the energy transition: Insights from the Finnish energy sector

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