L4D Learning for Democracy

" Smart Energy Systems – A European Perspective
The European Union has adopted ambitious energy and climate
change objectives to be achieved by the year 2020:
greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 20% while
the share of renewable energy is to be increased and energy
efficiency to be improved by this amount. Furthermore, the
EU has made a long term commitment to cut emissions by at
least 80% by 2050.
So far the current strategies are unlikely to achieve all 2020
targets; whilst the goal to increase the share of renewables
seems to be attainable, we are likely to fail on the improvement
of efficiency. Also, the strategies in place seem inadequate
to meet the longer term challenges. Use of renewable
energy is still limited because the development of efficient
energy transport is lagging. The internal energy market is still
fragmented and needs improvement regarding transparency,
accessibility and choice. Fragmentation of national regulation
limits companies to act on multi-national markets and sets
barriers to fair competition. The EU must take urgent action
to select the right tools to make the energy change happen and
to move towards a sustainable energy future.
The current situation exhibits a number of major challenges.
Large-scale renewable energy generation is currently largely
based on wind, and plants may be installed far from existing
power infrastructure, thus connection to the grid can present
a challenge. Owing to the inherent variability and weather
dependence of energy production and the limited capacity
for energy storage, balancing supply and demand becomes
also far more difficult.
The deployment of distributed energy resources can mitigate
the uncertainties connected to large plants and at the same
time exploit the potential of dispersed resources, although
the integration of distributed energy resources is extremely
challenging both from a market and a technical point of view.
Decentralization supports scalability and robustness and
facilitates access to the energy market for prosumers, thereby..."