A significant number of wind turbines will reach the end of their planned service life in the near future. A decision on lifetime extension is complex and experiences to date are limited. This review ...presents the current state-of-the-art for lifetime extension of onshore wind turbines in Germany, Spain, Denmark, and the UK. Information was gathered through a literature review and 24 guideline-based interviews with key market players. Technical, economic and legal aspects are discussed. Results indicate that end-of-life solutions will develop a significant market over the next five years. The application of updated load simulation and inspections for technical lifetime extension assessment differs between countries. A major concern is the uncertainty about future electricity spot market prices, which determine if lifetime extension is economically feasible.
The rapid expansion of renewable energy sources (RES) in many European countries brings about transmission grid expansion requirements. While the transition towards RES-based energy systems is ...largely perceived positively in general, locally both RES and grid expansion are often confronted with a lack of public acceptance. Using Germany as a case study, we analyse public acceptance of energy infrastructure and its main drivers on local vs. national levels. For this purpose, we conducted a nationally representative survey. Our results show that, on a national level, the acceptance of RES is very high and there is also a high acceptance of grid expansion if it helps to increase the share of RES in the system. In terms of local acceptance problems that may arise for most considered technologies, concerns about landscape modification turn out to be the main driving factor. Moreover, the distance between places of residence and places of energy infrastructure construction is crucial. While acceptance or rejection of technologies will never be entirely tangible or explicable, we find the explicability of rejections to be lowest for new technologies. Finally, age and education turn out to be the most relevant socio-demographic variables determining the participants' acceptance.
•A survey to understand drivers of energy technology acceptance was conducted.•Participants were asked to rank energy policy objectives.•Strong differences between acceptance on a national vs. a local level were found.•Landscape modification is the most important factor driving the local acceptance.•Age and education turned out to be the most relevant socio-demographic factors.
•Integrated cost optimisation model of PV BESS systems including system sizing and battery ageing.•Self-consumption of real-world applications can be increased by BESS up to about 58%.•Break-even ...battery system price is approx. 900–1200€/kWh.•Importance of realistic consumer load and PV generation profiles for cost optimisation is high.•Results are highly sensitive to economic and regulative framework including support schemes.
This contribution presents cost optimisation results from a techno-economic perspective of photovoltaic battery systems. The simulation based optimisation takes into consideration temporal high-resolution consumer load and PV production profiles, technical and economical PV and battery system parameters as well as the regulatory framework in Germany. The results include the cost optimal system configuration under the given framework, the share of self-consumption, degree of autarky, grid feed-in and supply as well as various battery system parameters. The ratio of the installed PV peak power to the useable capacity of the battery was found to have a significant impact on self-consumption, autarky and economic efficiency of the overall system and is one of technical key parameters for a cost-optimised system sizing. The break-even battery system price compared to PV systems without BESS is calculated to approx. 900€/kWh (without BESS support scheme) to 1200€/kWh (with German BESS support scheme). However, the individual taxation of revenues can lower the break-even costs significantly. Furthermore, the techno-economic analysis identifies a high sensitivity to regulation frame conditions and support schemes of PV and BESS for cost optimisation. Another key finding is that realistic load and production profiles must be used in order to allow for reliable statements concerning technical parameters and economic feasibility. Otherwise, cost optimisation results might overestimate self-consumption and lead to an incorrect calculation of the total costs.
This study explores the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the so-called European Union 5 (EU-5) countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) for the ...1985–2016 period. In doing so, we employ a carbon emission function to investigate the environmental Kuznets curve phenomenon, which describes a relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. The empirical results confirm the existence of an N-shaped relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the EU-5 countries. We incorporate additional variables such as renewable electricity consumption, trade openness, natural resource abundance, and energy innovation to augment the carbon emission function. Renewable electricity consumption, natural resources, and energy innovation improve environmental quality, while trade openness and the interaction between economic growth and renewable electricity consumption exert a positive impact on CO2 emissions. This study is novel in that it presents an interaction between economic growth and renewable electricity consumption. We also confirm the need for renewable energy regulations related to increasing renewable sources and promoting energy innovation to reduce the negative effects of energy and fossil energy resources on environmental degradation.
•The N-shaped EKC relationship exists between economic growth and CO2 emissions.•Renewable electricity consumption exerts negative effect on carbon emissions.•Natural resource availability improves environmental quality.•Economic growth/renewable electricity consumption relation increases CO2 emissions.
Geldtheorie und Währungspolitik unterliegen ständigen Veränderungen. Mit Bezug auf die Geldtheorie arbeitet dieser Band neuere Entwicklungen auf und konfrontiert sie mit »alten« Ansätzen. Im Bereich ...der Währungspolitik wird eine Zwischenbilanz zum Stand der Währungsintegration in Europa gezogen. Die vier geldtheoretischen Beiträge bilden den Schwerpunkt des Bandes. Sie konzentrieren sich, quasi lehrbuchmäßig, auf die (vier) Eckpfeiler der Geldtheorie, indem neuere Ansätze zur Geldnachfrage, zum Geldangebot, zur Transmission monetärer Impulse und zu den geldpolitischen Wirkungen, hier insbesondere auf das Preisniveau, modelliert und empirisch getestet werden. Ausgehend von den zahlreichen Unplausibilitäten der traditionellen Geldnachfrageschätzungen demonstrieren Manfred Willms und Volker Clausen anhand des Bufferstock-Ansatzes die Interaktionen zwischen Geldnachfrage und Geldangebot und die daraus resultierenden dynamischen Anpassungsprozesse. In einer Weiterentwicklung bisheriger Standardmodelle analysieren Ingrid Größl-Gschwendtner, Karl-Heinz Ketterer und Peter Stahlecker das Kreditangebotsverhalten der Banken und ihre Nachfrage nach refinanzierungsfähigen Aktiva, wobei als Determinanten die jeweilige Marktform, das Risikoverhalten der Banken und die Parameter der Zentralbank im Vordergrund stehen. Uwe Westphal und Stefan Kuhnert sowie Otmar Issing und Karl-Heinz Tödter widmen ihre Untersuchungen dem gleichen Thema, nämlich dem Zusammenhang zwischen Geld(mengen)politik und Preisentwicklung. Obwohl auf unterschiedlichen Ansätzen basierend - Strukturmodell im ersten, quantitätstheoretisches Konzept der Gleichgewichtspreise im zweiten Fall -, gelangen beide Beiträge zu einem weitgehenden Gleichklang in den Ergebnissen, nämlich zu einer validen Stabilität der deutschen M3-Nachfragefunktion (auch nach der deutschen Vereinigung) und des Zusammenhangs zwischen Geldmengen- und Preisniveauveränderungen. Gegenstand der währungspolitischen Beiträge von Wim Duisenbe
Das neue Wahlgesetz, das im März 2023 beschlossen wurde, hat viel Kritik auf sich gezogen. Insbesondere die dort implementierte Abschaffung der Grundmandatsklausel findet eine erbitterte ...Gegnerschaft. Gregor Gysi bezeichnete das Vorgehen der Ampel schlicht als „unmoralisch“. So fremdartig der Vorwurf der „Unmoral“ im Kontext einer verfassungsrechtlichen Debatte erst einmal zu sein scheint, so bringt er den Kern des weitverbreiteten Unbehagens am neuen Gesetz gut auf den Punkt. Denn nicht nur das Gesetz könnte „falsch“ sein, sondern einige Akteure könnten auch aus den „falschen“ Motiven gehandelt haben.
Unter Rückgriff auf aktuelle Forschungen zur Verflechtung von Kultur- und Politikgeschichte beleuchtet der Band kulturelle Faktoren politischer Entscheidungen im Deutschen Kaiserreich von 1871 bis ...1890. Dabei untersucht er das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen dezisionistischen und kompromissorientierten Formen des Entscheidens anhand ausgewählter Bereiche dieses Mehrebenensystems. Konkret nimmt er die Reichsmonarchen, den Bundesrat als Einrichtung föderalen Mitentscheidens, den Reichstag als Ausdruck demokratischer Partizipation, das Militär als extrakonstitutionelles Reservat monarchischer Prärogative sowie die Wirtschaft als konkurrierendes Handlungsfeld in den Blick und berücksichtigt auch den Einsatz von Emotionen in den Entscheidungsprozessen der Akteure.
Throughout the past six months, no number has dominated the public media more persistently than the reproduction number of COVID-19. This powerful but simple concept is widely used by the public ...media, scientists, and political decision makers to explain and justify political strategies to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we explore the effectiveness of political interventions using the reproduction number of COVID-19 across Europe. We propose a dynamic SEIR epidemiology model with a time-varying reproduction number, which we identify using machine learning. During the early outbreak, the basic reproduction number was 4.22 ± 1.69, with maximum values of 6.33 and 5.88 in Germany and the Netherlands. By May 10, 2020, it dropped to 0.67 ± 0.18, with minimum values of 0.37 and 0.28 in Hungary and Slovakia. We found a strong correlation between passenger air travel, driving, walking, and transit mobility and the effective reproduction number with a time delay of 17.24 ± 2.00 days. Our new dynamic SEIR model provides the flexibility to simulate various outbreak control and exit strategies to inform political decision making and identify safe solutions in the benefit of global health.
Seit 2022 sind Inflation und Zinsniveau in Deutschland merklich erhöht. Wir arbeiten mittels einer Szenarienrechnung die Auswirkung der höheren Preise und Zinsen auf die Finanzierungssalden der ...Kommunen in Nordrhein-Westfalen heraus und berücksichtigen dabei systematische Unterschiede zwischen höher und niedriger verschuldeten Kommunen. Zwar stehen gestiegenen Kosten auf der Ausgabenseite einige positive Effekte auf der Einnahmenseite entgegen, etwa weil einige Steuern an nominalen Größen anknüpfen. Der Gesamteffekt auf den Finanzierungssaldo ist in unseren Szenarien aber negativ.
Since 2022, inflation and interest rates in Germany have noticeably increased. We examine the impact of heightened inflation and interest rates on the financial balances of municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia. In our scenario analysis, we consider systematic differences between highly and less indebted municipalities. While there are positive effects on the revenue side that offset the higher costs on the expenditure side, such as some taxes being tied to nominal values, the analysis suggests that the overall effect on the financial balance is likely to be negative.
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