Achieving our 2030
greenhouse gas targets:
what can engineers offer?
5 April 2017
Right technologies? Right
time? Right price?
• Business and industry will be crucial to meeting
Ireland’s energy/climate commitments
• Near-commercial technology can bring us much
of the way towards the agreed 2030 targets
• However, radical behaviour change will be
required for any prospect of achieving much
deeper cuts required out to 2050
• Irish engineers can play a pivotal role, provided
they understand the evolving EU policy context
and the appropriate use of scenario modelling
“Policy soup”
2020 targets overlap - and interfere
EU Emissions Trading Sector:
Electricity generation and large industry.
Cap and trade scheme. Market price of
allowances is determined by EU-wide
balance of supply and demand.
Effort Sharing Sector:
Excludes EU ETS.
Irish reduction target of
20% was based solely on
our per capita GDP. It was
never intended to be
achievable through
domestic action alone.
Renewable Energy Directive:
Irish penetration target of
16% across both sectors.
Intended to be achieved
mainly through domestic
action but international
credits can be purchased.
Energy Efficiency Directive:
National savings target of 20%
across both sectors.
Challenging but achievable.
Effort Sharing: hypothetical ‘least cost’
20%
From European Commission Staff Working Paper 2012(5)
The actual member state Effort Sharing targets were
knowingly skewed away from an efficient outcome.
10%
-10%
-20%
Slovenia
Slovakia
Poland
Spain
Cyprus
Latvia
Ireland
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Hungary
Romania
Estonia
Czech
Belgium
Italy
Austria
EU
Bulgaria
France
Netherlands
Sweden
Denmark
Greece
Germany
Portugal
Malta
Finland
UK
0%
Varying degrees of skewing!
The efficient yet equitable
outcome is that governments
trade surplus allowances to
supplement ambitious domestic
action.
The optimal policy mix of domestic
action and allowance trading also
depends on the expected societal
value of any co-benefits such as
reduced traffic congestion and
better air quality.
New targets for 2030
Sector
EU ETS
Effort Sharing
Targets
• 43% reduction versus
2005
• No specific Irish target
Ireland’s national target of
30% vs 2005, if confirmed,
will be much less skewed
than the 2020 target was
Policy tools
• Market Stability
Reserve
• Steeper linear
reduction of EUAs
•
•
•
•
Policy
overlaps?
Emissions performance
standards to prevent coal
plant receiving capacity
payments?
• Governance framework to
enforce an (EU-wide) 27%
Renewables target
• Ireland must exceed 16%
RES from 2021 onwards?
Domestic abatement
Purchase of credits
Afforestation
Conversion of EUAs
Can we reliably
predicted the
optimal mix of
new and
existing
technologies
needed in
2030?
Not possible without a Tardis
• There are numerous technology-rich energy system
models in use. (PRIMES, GAINS, MARKAL/TIMES etc)
• Some are simulations that factor in a carbon price.
Others employ linear programming to calculate the
impact of policy constraints on marginal
greenhouse gas abatement costs.
• All rely on plausible assumptions about future
evolution of fossil fuel and equipment costs, rational
consumer preference
• A common strategy is to look for ‘no regrets’
measures that pop up in a wide range of scenarios
Predicting winners can
be pot luck
• A few years ago, the European Commission
decided to set aside three hundred million
EU Allowances to subsidise up to a dozen
large scale demonstration projects of
Carbon Capture & Storage
• Tortuous negotiations ensued but there was
eventually no uptake
Decarbonisation challenges
for engineers out to 2030
•
•
•
•
•
Electricity
Built environment
Process heating/cooling
Spatial planning and transport
Land use change
Electricity
• DCCAE’s focused support for relatively low cost
renewable generation (i.e. onshore wind) will help
underpin the electrification of heat and transport
• indirectly contributing to our Effort Sharing target
• The emerging risk is that new investment will falter
due to public resistance and political populism
• Can we make windfarms quieter and visually less
intrusive? Likewise, high voltage overhead lines?
Electricity (continued)
• By how much can we reduce the installed unit cost of
large scale and community-based solar PV to make
the required PSO Levy more affordable?
• Panels are only part of the capital cost
• Can intermittent generation be combined with costcompetitive battery storage and/or compressed air
energy storage?
• If storage arbitrages away the diurnal variation in
wholesale prices, how will it make money?
More heat than light?
•
Low energy LED lighting and smart, high efficiency appliances
are obvious 'no regrets' measures. They offer a quick payback.
They also reduce power plant emissions, making it easier for
Ireland to reach its non-binding 40% RES-E sub-target.
• However, their impact on our mandatory weighted-average
16% RES target is diluted, and the contribution towards our
Effort Sharing target is exactly zero.
•
In contrast, displacing carbon-intensive heating fuels with
renewable heating sources would substantially help to achieve
our RES as well as any future Effort Sharing target.
• The current low market price of fossils fuels means that a
Renewable Heat Incentive is needed. But it is justified.
Stimulating innovation
• The design of any RHI auction will be key to promoting
technologies that are not yet fully commercial
• Should small scale solid biofuel boilers seek to match air
quality standards equivalent to those covered by the
Medium and Large Combustion Plant Directives?
• How far can we cut the capital cost of Air Source Heat
Pumps?
• What expertise would be needed for them to
feature in a national retrofit campaign?
Community heating schemes
•
Ireland seems to be a laggard, compared to other member
states, in the roll-out of District Heating schemes.
• Can engineers work more closely with local and
regional planners to maximise the potential?
•
Likewise, what role can process engineers play in
promoting small-scale Anaerobic Digestion to extract
useful heat from industrial and commercial waste?
•
How competitive can bio-methane purification and
injection become?
Planning and transport
•
Civil, mechanical and electrical engineers can play a key
role in making our cities more liveable, while reducing their
carbon footprints
• Helping planners to design better-integrated public
transport systems
• Improving the cruising range of electric vehicles while
reducing the cost and weight of the batteries (the
applied research may not take place in Ireland)
• Building out alternative fuels infrastructure for road
freight vehicles and marine
• Finding ways round vehicle warranty constraints on
blended bio-diesel content
• Devising a better (less energy-intensive) way of
removing NOx from diesel/biodiesel exhaust
Land Use Change
• Afforestation offers better carbon sequestration potential
for Ireland than many other EU member states
• A possible engineering challenge is how to plant new
forest stands in a way that minimises the release of
carbon already sequestered in the soil.
• In principle, large areas of cutaway bog in the Irish
midlands could also sequester carbon if they were
carefully re-wetted. Possible civil engineering challenges
include:
• how to manage the wetting on a large scale; and
• how to prove that it can be done without increasing
the risk of seasonal flooding elsewhere.
Questions?