Workshop
Energy and COVID-19
Part I Panel Discussion: Dec. 3rd 11:00-14:00 (GMT+0)
Part II Paper Session: Dec. 4th 11:00-14:20 (GMT+0)
Governments’ responses to COVID-19 indicate a clear willingness to respond with funding at scale to counter immediate public health impacts. Control of conventional or priority pollutants (especially PM2.5, which is linked to higher risk of susceptibility to COVID-19) is attracting increased scale of investment which has not been forthcoming for carbon mitigation pathways envisioned under the Paris Agreement. As there is not sufficient time to address Covid19 and climate change independently, increased financial stimulus to support economic recovery from the pandemic should be crafted to include “no regrets” investments in conventional pollution control which also deliver quantifiable climate change benefits.
Recovering from Covid19 has implications for energy supply chains; industrial production; urban transport and energy services; and social infrastructure including retrofit and new designs for public buildings, schools, hospitals, etc.
The workshop will discuss how the Covid19 has impacted energy supply chains with a focus on Asia and the Pacific, with presentations from multiple stakeholders including public and private sector, multilateral development banks, and academia.
P2P Energy Management and Trading
Dec. 5th 11:00-13:00 (GMT+0)
Over the last few years, there has been extensive growth in small-scale distributed energy resources (DERs), which encompass behind-the-meter generation, energy storage, inverters, electric vehicles, and controllable loads at the household level. These small-scale resources can be utilized not only to manage the energy demand more efficiently but also to enable a significant mix of clean energy into the grid. However, to do so, it is important for the owners of these assets to actively participate in the energy market. As a consequence, peer-to-peer trading has emerged as a next-generation energy management technique for the smart grid that can enable the owners of small scale DERs – also known as prosumers – to actively participate in the energy market. With the prosumers in control of setting the terms of transactions and the delivery of goods and services, it is expected that the gain that the prosumers can reap from participating in peer-to-peer trading would be substantial. At the same time, the grid — consisting of generators, retailers, and distribution network system providers — can also obtain a significant benefit in terms of reducing peak demand, lowering investment and operational costs, minimizing reserve requirements, and improving power system reliability.
The workshop will discuss some recent results and advancement in peer-to-peer trading in electricity networks in recent years. There are five presentations by researchers from different regions including USA, UK, Australia, and Singapore.
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Panel session
Energy System and Climate Governance in the Post COVID-19 Pandemic Era
Dec. 2nd 11:00-14:00 (GMT+0)
The COVID-19 Pandemic has been heavily damaging the world economy and significantly influencing the issues of climate change and energy both from supply side and consumption side. Studies show that during the lockdown and quarantine period, due to the worldwide economic slowdown, global energy consumption and CO2 emission decreased temporally. However, long with the economy reopening, energy use as well as carbon emissions are increasing rapidly. As the COVID-19 Pandemic is becoming a New Normal, thought the world economy may have a slow recovery or stagnation, however, we concern that the large-scale stimulating policies may induce a black and high carbon economic recovery. In particular, we concern that fossil fuel consumption might be rebounded and causes more CO2 emissions and environment pollutions. Hopefully, many countries like the UK, Germany, Japan, China, etc. announced their roadmap and timetable of carbon neutrality by 2050 or 2060 and promised to increase renewable energy as well as decrease fossil energy largely. Consequently, we acknowledged that climate mitigation is still a priority of global governance and needs to pay even more efforts to apply the Paris Agreement and the United Nations SDGs. Under this background, we organized this special panel to measures the impacts of the COVID-19 on the world economy and energy consumption and to discuss the issues of climate change, energy policy and international cooperation. We are pleased to invite some world well-known scholars in these fields to discuss the above issues and how to design a Low-carbon Energy System aims at a Zero-emission Sustainable Society in the post-COVD-19 Pandemic Era.
Energy Efficient Freight Transport and Logistics
Dec. 8th 11:00-13:30 (GMT+0)
The global market of transport and logistics is expected to reach USD 15.5 Trillion by 2023 according to the Transparency Market Research, which is a main impetus of global economic growth and plays a significant role in improving the overall competitiveness of industry. Meanwhile, world delivered energy consumption in the transportation sector increases at an annual average rate of 1.4% and is projected to consume 130 quadrillion Btu in 2030 according to the International Energy Outlook. With an increased demand of logistics, transportation tools such as vehicles, ships and aircrafts also produce numerous emissions of pollutant and greenhouse gases nowadays. In order to solve such concerns, energy efficient and green logistics has become one of the important directions of the sustainable development under the environment of vigorously developing low-carbon economy.
Both the original research papers and review studies about the energy consideration in this area are invited, including but not limited to the following fields: Green transportation planning focusing on reducing energy consumption and GHG emissions such as electric vehicle routing problem and charging station deployment problem; Sharing economy such as logistics under crowdsourcing mode, on-demand ride-sharing services, and self-service express cabinet; Reverse logistics and closed-loop supply chain; Operation management of green ports and shipping networks; The role of energy consideration in road traffic management and network design with traffic flow model; New technology application in green logistics such as unmanned drone, 3D printing, Internet of Things, robotized warehouse system, and big data; Energy management problem arisen form the intra-logistics and external-logistics of industrial plants; Other issues such as intermodal transportation and renewable energy resources.
Big Data Analytics for Smart Energy Systems
Dec. 9th 11:00-13:00 (GMT+0)
The comprehensive digitization, informatization, and intelligence of the energy system have made the amount of relevant data increase exponentially, and it has the remarkable characteristics of massive, multi-source, heterogeneous, and so on. By combining massive data with collected information from different links of the energy system, various entities, such as power utilities, customers, energy investment, society, etc., can use big data analytics technology to deepen the understanding of the energy system and its relevant links and create new value. This panel will discuss big data analytics application in the smart energy systems.
Women in Applied Energy
Dec. 7th 11:00-12:30 (GMT+0)
“Women in Applied Energy” was established in 2019. It’s a platform with added value for women lean in and the missions include: empower women researchers in the Applied Energy’s community to obtain career achievements; create a supportive platform for addressing gender-related issues with mentorship; advance gender equality and “Women Power” in energy science, technology, and engineering.
The panel is organized by “Women in Applied Energy” and panelists from different areas will share valuable experience about women development and further discussion is also arranged.
Scholarly Publication
Dec. 5th 11:00-12:30 (GMT+0)
Several honoured guests are deliberately invited to discuss about how to publish in an international journal. The panel focus on future publishing issues, including, but not limited to:
Working towards High Impact Publications
Switch on academic publishing in China
Forget about Impact Factors and find true value beyond
Why Publications and how to write Them?
Response to referees in review of paper manuscripts
Stories behind the paper
Trends of Scientific Publishing — from a publisher’s perspective
Accelerated climate change and the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus
Dec. 4th 11:00-13:00 (GMT+0)
The term ‘anthropocene’ refers to the epoch of global developments caused by the human impact on geology and the earth’s ecosystem. It is currently characterized by an accumulation of extreme weather events, including the hottest summer on record in the Northern Hemisphere causing the second lowest Arctic sea ice minimum on record, a very destructive wildfire season in California and a persistent severe drought in Central and Eastern Europe as measured by NASA. The food-energy-water nexus (FEW-Nexus) represents key sectors of the Anthropocene increasingly and centrally impacted by the accelerating climate change. In this panel, the interlinkages between the FEW nexus sectors and their embeddedness in the socio-economic-ecological system (SEES) will be considered and elaborated against the context of the accelerated climate change.
From AR to AI in the Energy Industry
Dec. 10th 12:00-13:30 (GMT+0)
Negative Emissions Technologies
Dec. 10th 15:00-16:00 (GMT+0)
Even as the deployment of carbon free energy and industrial technologies accelerates, it seems increasingly likely that the world will overshoot allowable carbon dioxide emissions required to keep global warming below the 2C target. This panel will discuss some of the possibilities around the deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs), which might provide a path to mitigate carbon emissions from sectors that prove hardest to decarbonize, while also helping to restore atmospheric CO2 levels to more manageable levels. Panelists will address several promising technologies for net zero or negative emissions in the energy generation, shipping, and industrial materials sectors, as well as discuss the interaction between negative emissions technologies and various carbon pricing schemes.
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Keynote speech
Prof. Daniel M. Kammen
University of California, Berkeley
Have we reached ‘peak carbon’ emissions?
Abstract
Have we reached peak carbon emissions—that long hoped-for moment when the global emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, stop increasing and start to decline? The answer is “quite possibly, yes.” Solar and wind power are now the cheapest forms of new energy technology across most of the United States. The costs of solar energy projects have fallen by close to 90 percent over the past decade, and wind by 70 percent. Batteries and other forms of energy storage are now falling in cost as fast as solar and wind energy ever have, due to a series of new innovations. Transition to clean energy, however, is no longer a function of technology costs and market forces, but of politics and the entrenched, massively-subsidized, fossil fuels legacies. The global costs of fossil fuel subsidies – estimated to be $0.5 – 5 trillion per year are on par with the total investments in clean energy over the past decade (Kammen, 2020). Fossil-fuel damages are global, but the most immediate impacts are on the poorest citizens in every nation through local air pollution, health damages from work in the fossil-fuel sector, and the impacts on the areas with the poorest infrastructure. Climate protection can only proceed if social justice is at the forefront.
Short bio
Dr. Daniel M. Kammen is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL; http://rael.berkeley.edu), and was director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center from 2007 – 2015. In 2020 Kammen was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Prof. Reinhard Madlener
RWTH Aachen University
Power Generation from Variable Renewables and Flexibility Needs Implied
Abstract
The ongoing transformation of the energy system towards sustainability, characterized by decarbonization, decentralization, digitalization and democratization, requires a sufficient amount of flexibility to accommodate rising shares of variable renewables. In this talk, an overview of the most relevant flexibility options in the electricity sector is provided, and also of the main actors and issues and important economic and policy considerations. Moreover, the policy and regulatory needs are discussed that are necessary for a smooth and efficient transition to energy system integration. Finally, some reflections are offered regarding the need for sustainable regulation, industrial organization, business economics, system-friendly citizen energy and prosumer engagement, and technology.
Short bio
Prof. Madlener is the founding and current Director of the Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), which forms an integral element of the interdisciplinary and integrated E.ON Energy Research Center established at RWTH Aachen University in 2006. His main research interests, on which he has published extensively over the last 25 years, are in the fields of energy economics and policy; sustainable energy systems; energy efficiency and rebound; the adoption, temporal & spatial diffusion of innovation; and investment in (optimal mixes of) innovative energy technologies under uncertainty. The main teaching activities of Professor Madlener comprise Energy Economics, Environmental & Resource Economics, Economics of Technological Diffusion, Behavioral Energy and Environmental Economics, Economics of Technical Change, Smart Grid Economics and Management, and Public Choice. He acts as Senior Editor of the Energy Policy journal and serves on the Editorial Boards of a number of international scientific journals, including Applied Energy; Energy Efficiency; Energy Systems; Energy, Sustainability & Society; International Journal of Energy Sector Management; and the Journal of Energy Storage, amongst others.
Prof Xiaohua Xia
University of Pretoria
The State Of Research, Development and Innovation of Electrical Energy Efficiency in South Africa
Abstract
An overview of South African research productivity in various energy efficiency fields using the Scopus data base, is given for the 30-year period, 1986 to 2016. The study, coordinated by the Academy of Science of South Africa, aims to inform the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of opportunities for further development in terms of human capital development, intellectual property output and technology development and innovation, in order to promote the adoption of energy efficiency technologies in South Africa. A methodology consisting of a number of agreed steps was established to identify 10 areas and four categories of South African interests, and their performances are compared to see the research strength, weakness and strength. To benchmark, 10 other countries are selected for the same 10 areas and over the same 30-year period. South Africa scores fairly well internationally in terms of research outputs. Relatively strong areas such as industrial energy systems in MMM and M&V are reflections of South African established research strengths. South Africa follows more or less the broad international trends in terms of restructuring and consolidation of cross-disciplinary fields for micro-grids, which consists of traditionally strong South African research areas in renewable energy, power systems, integrated building energy systems and energy storage. There is accelerated growth in SSL, and a slight decline in batch chemical processes, while emerging research areas such as tribology, smart grids and M&V show rapid growth. Some research, as well as some more recent research on supercapacitors and the South Africa climate change targets, snapshots are shown, as later influenced by the ASSAf study.
Short bio
Prof. Xia is a professor in the Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering Department, University of Pretoria, director of the Centre of New Energy Systems, and the director of the National Hub for the Postgraduate Programme in Energy Efficiency and Demand-side Management. He obtained his PhD degree at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1989. He was academically affiliated with the University of Stuttgart, Germany, the Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France, and the National University of Singapore before joining the University of Pretoria in 1998. His current research interests are industrial energy systems and building energy systems. He is an IEEE fellow and an NRF A-rated scientist. He was elected a fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering in 2005, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2011. He has been an associate editor of Automatica, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and specialist editor (control) of the SAIEE Africa Research Journal, and currently sits at the editorial board of Applied Energy, Advances in Applied Energy, and Annual Reviews in Control. He is a registered professional engineering by the Engineering Council of South Africa, and a certified measurement and verification professional by the American Association of Energy Engineers. He is an elected board member of measurement and verification council of South Africa (MVCSA) since 2014. He is the founding director of Onga Energy Efficiency and Management Pty Ltd – the first SANAS accredited M&V Company against ISO 17020 and he is invited as a technical assessor for the South African National Accreditation Systems (SANAS) for M&V inspection bodies in South Africa. He is a scientific advisor to two ministers of the South African government – the Department of Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, and he is also an advisor to Chinese State Council Overseas Office as a member of the Scientific Committee.
Prof Ju Li
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Challenges for Battery Energy Storage Systems
Abstract
The market price of Li-ion battery cells dropped by a factor of ~6× since 2010. This epic cost-down is on par with the development of solar photovoltaics and is the best news for Renewable Energies and Climate Grand Challenges in the last decade. With LIB cell cost at ~$90/kWh today, battery chemistries well validated in the electrical vehicles industry at 500GWh scale with cycle life up to 10,000 cycles are ready to “move the needle” in a big way. Grid-scale LIB offers one possible way to keep human beings on track in the near-term to meet the IPCC goal of halving global CO2 emission by 2040-2050, that demands Terawatts and 100s of TWh. However, there are still key technical challenges in fire safety and recycling. There were >20 fire accidents amongst ~500 battery energy storage stations in South Korea within 3 years. Interestingly, some of these fires did not start from the battery, but from the power electronics and accessories. Better fire extinguishers, sensors, software, electrical systems, and safer electrolytes/electrodes are needed. In terms of recycling, waste LIB contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Currently, less than ~10% of LIBs are recycled. Without state-of-the-art recycling technologies, scaling up would be environmentally disastrous. Tremendous materials and chemical engineering work remain in order to fully close the loop in Li, Co/Ni, F, P, Cu. Further reducing the cost and integration with software are also essential. To scale up the current LIB industry by another factor of 100×-1000× is a civilization-scale endeavor. It must be done “Right”.
Short bio
Prof. Li has held faculty positions at the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and is presently a chaired professor at MIT. His group (http://Li.mit.edu) investigates the mechanical, electrochemical and transport behaviors of materials as well as novel means of energy storage and conversion. Ju is a recipient of the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the 2006 Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and the TR35 award from Technological Review. Ju was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2014 and a Fellow of the Materials Research Society in 2017. In 2016 Ju Li co-founded one of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Low-Carbon Energy Centers, the Center for Materials in Energy and Extreme Environments (CME). Li is the chief organizer of MIT A+B Applied Energy Symposia that aim to develop solutions to global climate change challenges with “A-Action before 2040” and “B-Beyond 2040 technologies.
Prof Xiliang Zhang
Tsinghua University
The pathway of China’s energy system transformation to achieve the 2060 carbon neutrality goal.
Abstract
President Xi Jinping announced China’s new climate pledge of achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 in his speech to the United Nations on September 22. The presentation will provide some results of an analysis of the climate goal conducted by Professor Zhang’s group using CGEM model, showing how China might become carbon neutral by 2060 in terms of economic restructuring, improvement in energy efficiency, electrification of the final energy uses, deployment of renewable and nuclear energy, and other breaking carbon technologies, and public policy. The speech will also give an overview of China’s national carbon emissions trading system development which would play a critical role in accelerating the low carbon energy economy transformation for next decade.
Short bio
Dr. Zhang is Professor of Management Science and Engineering and Director of the Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy at Tsinghua University. His current research interests include low-carbon energy economy transformation, integrated assessment of energy and climate policies, renewable energy and automotive energy. Since 2015, Professor Zhang has been heading the expert group on China’s national carbon market design, which is a taskforce of the Climate Change Department in the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He also served as the co-leader of the expert group for drafting China’s Renewable Energy Law from 2004 to 2005, which was organized by the Environmental Protection and Resource Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress, and as a lead author of the 4th and 5th IPCC Climate Change Assessment Report. Dr. Zhang is the current Chair of the Energy Systems Engineering Committee of the China Energy Research Society and a member of the board of directors of Chinese Society of Sustainable Development. He holds a PhD in Systems Engineering from Tsinghua University.
Prof. Denise Mauzerall
Princeton University
Evaluating Opportunities to Simultaneously Address Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in China
Abstract
The Chinese government has declared a war on air pollution while also pledging to be carbon neutral by 2060. This talk will provide a comparative analysis of synergies and trade-offs for air quality and greenhouse gas mitigation among a variety of energy technology interventions that displace the use of coal. Key findings include that economy wide electrification, particularly of the residential and transport sectors with heat pumps and electric vehicles have clear co-benefits for both air quality and climate. Conversely, the use of synthetic natural gas results in substantial trade-offs with air quality improvements accompanied by substantial climate disbenefits. Furthermore, improvements in air quality increases the efficiency of solar PV electricity generation which leads to further displacement of coal and air quality improvements thus creating a virtuous cycle for air quality, health and climate.
Short bio
Prof. Denise Mauzerall’s research examines opportunities to simultaneously reduce air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions while improving public health and food security. Current research is examining the potential air quality, health and climate benefits of increased electrification in China, air quality and climate co-benefits of various substitutes for residential coal stoves in China, China’s role in overseas development financing of electric power generation, evaluation of upstream methane leakage from on and off-shore oil and gas wells, evaluation of the effect of air pollution on the ability to generate solar electricity, and evaluation of the potential to increase nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture. Her group has published over 85 papers on environmental/energy topics in top research journals. She served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s chartered Science Advisory Board from 2014-2017, is on the executive advisory board for the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on opportunities to simultaneously address air pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation, and has been a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which shared the Nobel Peace Price with Vice President Al Gore. She sits on the executive editorial boards of the Atmospheric Environment and Advances in Applied Energy journals. At Princeton she is on the executive committees of the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, the Global India Center and the Program in Technology and Society: Energy track. She directs the PhD program in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs where she is a core professor in the Center for Policy Research on Energy and Environment.
Prof. Eric Masanet
University of California, Santa Barbara
Technology Prospects for Decarbonizing Global Cement and Concrete Cycles
Abstract
The cement and concrete cycle accounts for 6-9% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement will require reducing these emissions to near zero by mid-century—a goal that has heretofore appeared elusive due to growing demand, energy- and carbon-intensive production processes, long-lived process technologies, and lack of rapidly-scalable material substitutes. However, a number of emerging innovations in materials science, process heating technologies, carbon capture and utilization, and materials efficiency and substitution may offer new pathways for decarbonizing this “hard to abate” source of emissions. This presentation will review the innovation landscape across the cement and concrete cycle, present new decarbonization pathways these innovations may enable, and discuss stakeholder actions and policy options for accelerating their adoption.
Short bio
Eric Masanet is Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Sustainability Science for Emerging Technologies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research develops energy and materials systems models to identify technology and policy pathways for decarbonizing industrial systems. From 2015-2017, he led the Energy Demand Technology Unit at the International Energy Agency in Paris, where he oversaw energy analyses of the global industrial, transport, and buildings sectors. He is currently a Lead Author of Chapter 5 (Demand) for Working Group III of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report and a member of the Research Advisory Board at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). He is also the former Editor in Chief of Resources, Conservation, and Recycling, the leading peer-reviewed journal on sustainable resource systems. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Prof. Phil Taylor
University of Bristol
Potential Technical, Economic and Environmental Benefits of Multi Energy Systems Planning and Operation
Abstract
Energy systems are vitally important for UK industry and society. The energy trilemma (energy security, environmental impact and social cost) presents many complex interconnected challenges which have huge relevance internationally. These challenges vary considerably from region to region due to historical, geographic, political, economic and cultural reasons. As technology and society changes so do these challenges, and therefore the planning, design and operation of energy systems needs to be revisited and optimised. Current energy systems research does not fully embrace a whole systems approach and is therefore not developing a deep enough understanding of the interconnected and interdependent nature of energy infrastructure. The global energy systems research community would strongly benefit from a more diverse, open, supportive community with representation from many disciplines beyond traditional engineering (such as Computing Science, Statistics, Anthropology, Geography, Economics and Applied Mathematics) to help implement a whole systems approach. A deeper level of understanding, through a whole systems approach, is necessary in order to consider how best to plan, design, integrate, regulate and operate energy systems and their associated markets in the future.
Short bio
Professor Taylor Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at University of Bristol, is an internationally leading researcher and industrial expert in energy systems, who has worked in industry and academia for over 25 years. He joined Newcastle University in 2013 as Dean and Director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Sustainability, and later, became the Head of the School of Engineering. Professor Taylor is Co-Director of the £20m EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI) and the Director of the £10m EPSRC Supergen Energy Networks Hub. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for fuel poverty charity National Energy Action, Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and non-executive director of Northern Powergrid, UK.
