Renewable Energy is alternative to massive use of fossil fuels.
Biomass, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal renewable energy sources are explicitly explained in EUROGIA+ White Book Part 2.
Biomass:
Biomass is a renewable energy source that can provide energy to be used for heating and cooling, electricity and transport. Biomass fuels can be stored, meeting both peak and baseline energy demands. In the form of biofuels (solid, liquid or gaseous), biomass can directly replace fossil fuels (solid, liquid and gaseous), either fully or in blends of various percentages. In the latter case, there is often no need for equipment modifications.
Bio-energy is CO2 neutral, if biomass is produced in a sustainable manner. Bio-energy can contribute to important elements of national/regional development: economic growth and employment; import substitution with direct and indirect effects on GDP and trade balance; security of energy supply and diversification.
Wind:
Modern wind power technology is largely based on know-how gathered from European R&D and deployment activities related to inland (onshore) wind energy. Onshore electricity production from wind energy is a mature technology. Ongoing R&D efforts are primarily focused on maximizing the value of wind energy and taking the technology offshore. Capital investment costs for wind generation plants are of the order of €1000 to €1200 per kW for onshore technology (inclusive of grid connection costs), and €1200 to €2200 per kW for offshore (exclusive of grid connection costs), even up to €3000 for deep offshore. Typically, average capacity factors for wind power installations are 1,800-2,200 full-load hours onshore and 3,500-4,000 full-load hours offshore.
Solar:
Hydro:
Geothermal:
The geothermal energy sector comprises electric power production and heat production sectors.
A further distinction is made for the heat sector according to whether the geothermal energy is used directly (low and medium temperature applications) or indirectly (very low temperature applications or heat pumps).
Biomass: Two key technical challenges concern all biomass energy sources: the need to avoid competing with food production for land use; and the need to efficiently and cost-effectively collect feedstock over large areas
Wind: The two main barriers to large-scale wind deployment are grid integration and present limitations that prevent further up scaling. Current electricity transmission and distribution systems have been designed and developed to manage more traditional generation technologies, and are not appropriate for large-scale wind penetration, whether centralised or distributed.
Solar:
Hydro:
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