CommUnity Post Magazine | 3rd Edition

The CommUnity Post The Voice of the CommUnity by EIT InnoEnergy

3RD EDITION | 2020

UNVEILING A NEW REFUELLING STATION CONCEPT Learn about the future perspectives of hydrogen in mobility

SUSTAINABILITY

BY EDUCATION Do you believe education is key in fighting climate change?

Meet your new team of warriors

HAITI ON THE ROAD Discover the impact of renewable energy in remote communities

© Filipe.g.coelho

THROUGH THE EYES OF THE COMMUNITY OPINION | *TITLE*

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ody Text (leave two squares of spacing between this column and the next; increasing the space between the first letter and the rest to 80 will be necessary; change the colour of the first letter according to the title’s colour).

Being Vivified 1

© Somraj Sahu RD 3RD EDITION | 2020 2019

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE

In this edition

The CommUnity has seen many changes throughout the last 12 months, but here at the CommUnity Post we still strive to be the voice of the CommUnity sharing your research, stories, and insights into the many facets of the energy transition.

After the successful launch of our second magazine we immediately set to work on the third, invigorated by your response and kind words. The team at the CommUnity Post has worked tirelessly to bring you this third edition, and we think you will agree it is our best work yet, of even higher quality with more diverse articles.

Whether you are keen to learn about initiatives to introduce sustainability into the lives of young children, or discover the role financial instruments play in limiting emissions and leading us down a Paris-compatible pathway, or read more about e-mobility in Europe, you will find it all here in the third edition of the CommUnity Post magazine. We are so excited for you to read the work of the wider CommUnity. We'll catch you in the fourth edition.

Brendan Abadie Editor in Chief MSc RENE Student

In this edition

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Carbon capture.

Can it save our world?

Robin Barkhausen Haiti on the road: story of a life-changing project Luigi Ghiani Energy and water: one doesn’t flow without the other Laura Caballero Electricity: the silver bullet to power the world and mitigate climate change Gustavo Gomes Pereira Sustainability by Education: empowering the leaders of tomorrow Eloi Bigas Unveiling a new refuelling station concept Marco Grippa The Azores arquipelago: powered by geothermal Anna Schaeffer Charging EVs: reducing passenger transport emissions in Portugal Rudolph Santarromana References

Š Sara Vieira

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From wannapreneur to entrepreneur Rafael Martins

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Electricity: the silver bullet

© SbE

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Reducing emissions

© Oyekalakaar

© Jonathan Graesser

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Haiti on the road

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Sustainability

by Education

© Oyekalakaar

© Carmine Piparo

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Azores geothermal

© Luigi Ghiani

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Energy and water

OPINION | FROM WANNAPRENEUR TO ENTREPRENEUR

From wannapreneur to entrepreneur Rafael Martins UX/UI Designer, MSc RENE Alumnus

L

et me start off this article by admitting it right off the bat: my first start-up did not reach success.

And, please, be aware that I did not state it was a failure, I do choose my words carefully. Personally and professionally, the experience was the most enriching I ever had since I set foot in an entrepreneurial ground. There ought to be a separation between the venture and the person, which can sometimes be less than easy - it implies a lot of self reflection and honesty with oneself, more on that later. What I meant with my confession was that I was one of those people who took a leap in starting a start-up project only to recognise somewhere down the line it was not for me - at least, for now.

You see, often entrepreneurship is romanticised and sugar-coated. I believe it is probably due to the storytelling skills entrepreneurs have. We hear about struggling entrepreneurs who overcame odds, people who were not able to distinguish between stubbornness and persistence, thus, rewarded with the key to the gates of success. Yet, few talk about the true environment entrepreneurs usually need to go through, the emotional ride that it is. For that reason, I want to share my story, a story about my choices - which can be contested and experiences, my timing in taking steps towards what I labelled as a dream.

Today, I can pinpoint exactly when my journey started. I was an 18 year-old kid when I got into university. From an 8,750 people town in the centre of Portugal to its capital, it was a drastic change.

What did not help my case was that I enrolled in an engineering degree, not because it was my choice, but because I was somehow talked into choosing what would bring me security, comfort and status. Obviously, I felt misplaced most of the time, nonetheless, endured those years as I did not want to disappoint anyone, including myself.

Guess how that went. To disguise my lack of motivation, I joined extra activities to deviate my focus from the Bachelor’s. The highlight was an

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European student association that enabled me to organise projects, obtain skills in people mastery and offered a space to try new things and make mistakes. I travelled and met other cultures. I gained so much more from life but my degree was somewhat lagging behind nor was I carving a brilliant path. It was during that time that I came across the EIT InnoEnergy’s Master School. Its emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, environmental studies and sustainability with the international mobility on top of the cake seemed like a good fit and finally, the escape that I had craved for. To keep it short, I was admitted to the programme and it changed how I perceived myself in the world and society.

You see, often entrepreneurship is romanticised and sugar-coated. [...] few talk about the true environment entrepreneurs usually need to go through, the emotional ride that it is.

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE During 2 years, and I am sure some of those who read this will roll their eyes, we heard the term “game-changer”. The master’s awoke in me an urge to become an entrepreneur. But, by then, I had become a wannapreneur - waiting for the right moment and dreaming that it would solve any misplacement feelings I had, building confidence and courage, learning how that even worked. It should not be seen as a surprise that, by then, I steered my young professional career in the direction of start-ups through internships and more extracurricular time, in the CommUnity by EIT InnoEnergy (special shout-out). Simply put, I had fallen in love with that scenario and romanticised idea that it was, for lack of a better word, cool to be an entrepreneur. Those were the people I looked up to. Previously, I had been the result of following rules and family expectations patterns which, consequently, made me not want to follow any rules or patterns. I knew that, sooner or later, I would make the jump from wannapreneur to an entrepreneur. But getting into that mindset was not a natural thing for me, and I was growing somewhat impatient.

Both me and my co-founder boldly decided to move to the Netherlands to pursue our project. I found a part-time job that would help me sustain living costs (in a start-up, by the way). We had an investor. We were admitted in our first funding and coaching programme. The team expanded to 5 people. We set up 3 pilot projects, engaged with stakeholders, tested hypothesis, formed partnerships and we identified a client. See what I am doing, only talking about the good stuff?

© Kelly Sikkema

In 2018, I had the absolute privilege of taking part in an international Summer School dubbed “The Journey” (no pun intended from my side, at least).

For simplicity, this programme brought together 39 students and young professionals across Europe to develop entrepreneurial projects that mitigate climate change. And there I was, in my last year of my Master’s, still self-perceiving myself as a kid, holding on to the chance that might be the “this is it” moment that would catapult me to grab the brass ring I had envisioned. And just like that, my first start-up project was born.

OPINION | FROM WANNAPRENEUR TO ENTREPRENEUR One year later, we decided to stop, despite the potential we had (or we like to believe we had).

So why did we back off when we had already left so much behind and put effort into a project we believed in? Timing was everything. Nobody in the team was surfing the same wave nor in the same stage of our lives. The amount of commitment was different and so was the perception of the startup itself - for some it was the “this is it” moment, for others it was a CV boost or an emotional attachment that one could not simply let go. This lead to miscommunication issues, physical and mental exhaustion and, sometimes, disbelief in what we were trying to set up. I always heard the number one reason start-ups could not break through was because of team issues. And, despite full awareness of that fact, there we were with it rubbed in our faces.

The start-up project was based in the Netherlands. Its purpose was to increase the circularity of electronic waste ©Jason Blackeye

We had other things stacked against us. For instance, we were an international team working in the Netherlands without a Dutch native speaker. We started in a market we had absolutely no idea about, in addition to the fact it was not even my field - I come from a Mechanical and Energy Engineering background whilst our startup operated in the management of electronic waste. Some can argue that naiveness is a good thing for entrepreneurs as they cannot grasp the dimension of what they are trying to set up, therefore, unleashing creativity and having no limits. Nonetheless, in my humble opinion, our naiveness was only good to start; after that, our little experience as entrepreneurs in such a regulated old-school sector did not help us a lot.

The final straw was when we all became spread geographically across Europe - studies, PhDs, more stable jobs made us apart. Yes, I could have tried to bring new people on board - and I did - but this was much easier to type than to get done.

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First pitch as a start-up resident in Utrecht

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE The emotional ride of moving to a new country, set up a start-up, find side jobs and embrace a new culture proved to be a larger bite than what we could chew. I said our choices could be contested but they were what they were. In the end, being an aspiring entrepreneur without a team felt really lonely.

This is my story. Probably, there are people out there who could have gone around these problems differently and better than the way we did. But there is no point in crying over spilled milk as it does not do ourselves any favours. I like to think that I have become a much better person with this experience. I do not feel I wasted time in these endeavours, on the other hand, I invested in my own individuality. Even though I would not recommend anyone to move to other countries so

Our participation in the EIT Jumpstarter Competition in Riga, Latvia. Two days of intensive business fundamentals training led to our first pivoting moment ŠEIT Jumpstarter

boldly like I did, I showed myself I could be resilient, I had the ability to kick-start and understand when it is time to give closure to certain chapters in life.

I had so many emotions, I truly felt everything under my skin - the challenges, the successes and celebrations, the networking and events, the self awareness of my own weaknesses and strengths, the sadness of leaving. I found out what it takes to be an entrepreneur. I made mistakes on the way and, consequently, I learned from them. And, most importantly, that misplacement feeling does not exist anymore. I found a place where usually people feel misplaced and lost. As I write this, I already have new business ideas I want to pursue as ramifications of this first start-up.

ŠUtrechtInc

My journey from wannapreneur to entrepreneur has only started. That realisation and understanding, the vision of a clear direction of what I want to accomplish in my life opened up. And that, with all fairness, is a personal success.

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TECHNICAL | CARBON CAPTURE. CAN IT SAVE OUR WORLD?

Carbon capture. Can it save our world?

Looking at four technologies to stop global warming Robin Barkhausen MSc SELECT Student

“B

reakthroughs in energy technologies could reduce air pollution, help people escape poverty and avoid the worst effects of climate change. But here’s the tricky part: we don’t yet know which ones will succeed.” (Bill Gates on the World Economic Forum 2017 [1]). One approach seems to be very promising though: carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, also known as carbon capture (CC). It is desperately needed.

The global demand for energy grows constantly and, with it, the number of contaminants in our atmosphere rises. Due to the greenhouse effect, the earth’s temperature increases, with dreadful consequences for life as we know it. Today, the awareness of this problem in Europe is high and countermeasures are being taken. Process efficiencies are improving and saving energy has become a virtue. Nevertheless, we suffer from our historical debt with decades of uncontrolled emissions. At the same time, as standards of living in countries of the global south improve, so does their need for electricity. The energy consumption of the so-called developing countries exceeded the demand of the OECD countries in 2007; and this is just the beginning. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration [2,3], by 2040, those countries are expected to cover two-thirds of the global energy consumption.

With our current fossil fuel-based energy mix, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will keep growing and paints our future in the darkest colours. Using conservative estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2018 [4], a 1.5°C rise of the global temperature in comparison to pre-industrial times could be reached as soon as 2040 - resulting in dramatic heatwaves, 9

heavy precipitations, severe droughts, high risks of irreversible losses of ecosystems and direct exposure of 10.4 million people to the rising sea level by 2100. Confirming data can be found in the Fourth Climate Assessment conducted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) [5], as shown in the sea level rise over time in the figure below.

Global mean sea level rises from -500 to 2000 CE; possible variants of ancient states marked in the blue shaded area [5].

There is still a chance to prevent the worst-case scenario, but simply hoping for a quick reduction of emissions is likely to fail. Measures to actively extract CO2 from the atmosphere could, on the other hand, be part of the solution. But what is currently happening in this area? Let’s take a look at four promising approaches.

The pioneer: BECCS BECCS stands for Bioenergy with CO2 Capture and Storage. The following steps are incorporated in the BECCS process: 1. Generating electricity in a power plant fueled by biomass, for example with woody residuals from the forestry industry. Enough to be roughly carbon neutral, but the goal here is to become an active carbon sink. Therefore, another step is needed.

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE 2. Exhaust gases of the combustion process are captured. These are saturated with CO2, so they should best be safely stored somewhere as far away from the atmosphere as possible.

Thankfully, the fossil fuel industry left some useful farewell gifts in the form of depleted oil and gas fields, waiting to finally take part in the struggle for sustainability.

While many studies and test runs on BECCS have already been completed, the first pilot BECCS plant capturing emissions from the combustion of 100 % biomass started operations in the beginning of 2019. The plant, run by Drax Biomass in the UK, can capture one tonne of CO2 per day [6].

Produce green energy, then capture the emissions and store them underground: all problems solved!?

Not quite. Even though the OECD estimates that meeting our lower emission targets for 2050 [7] depends significantly on the use of BECCS, there are still some downsides to consider. Whenever talking about bioenergy, the food versus fuel debate is ubiquitous. Can we argue to plant energy crops instead of rice or wheat if more than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from malnutrition?

Most certainly not. And by relying only on residues and waste, this will only be a drop in the ocean considering our enormous energy demand. Even though BECCS sounds effective at first sight, the actual efficiency in reducing CO2 is highly dependent on the number of different fossil fuels that are part of the biomass supply chain.

Moreover, there is always the risk of a capture failure and gas leakage, destroying all efforts made. Is there a safer way to store the exhaust gas? Iceland has an idea.

Iceland petrifies: Direct air capture

That’s why Reykjavik Energy organised the EU-funded CarbFix project, that set up the first truly carbon-negative power plant. They use a

Š Lukas Gojda

The North. Cold, harsh and unforgiving, but also, a place where humans and nature find more balance and harmony than elsewhere. And they aim at keeping it this way.

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TECHNICAL | CARBON CAPTURE. CAN IT SAVE OUR WORLD? revolutionary approach: released emissions1 from their geothermal power plant in Hellisheidi are captured and dissolved into water. The liquid is then pumped into the natural basaltic formations, found 1000 m beneath the earth’s surface. This is where the magic happens: The injection of CO2 and hydrogen sulfide initiate a chemical reaction with magnesium and calcium contained in the basaltic rocks, forming solid-state carbonate minerals in less than 2 years. This process is called mineralisation and is shown in the figure below.

The products are solid-state carbonate minerals CO2 captured securely in form of a geological longterm storage.

Carbon Engineering funded by Gates: CO2 to fuel Founded in 2009, the Canadian company Carbon Engineering aims at capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and use it to create low-carbon synthetic fuels. With financial investments from Bill Gates, they managed to set up their pilot aircapturing-plant in British Columbia in 2015. At that point, it mainly consisted of their direct air capture technology – a way to capture compressed CO2 from the atmosphere, only using water and energy as inputs.

In 2017, the revolutionary step of the CO2-tofuels-synthesis was integrated into their existing facility: This is a thermochemical conversion of CO2 and hydrogen (produced via electrolysis from water) to syngas and in additional steps to regular fuels like gasoline or diesel. A schematic layout of such a system is depicted in the following figure.

Waste CO2 from the steam (I) goes to the gas separation station (II) is diluted in water (III) piped to the injection site (IIII) and pumped underground where it mineralizes into rock [7].

About 10% of the earth’s surface layer consists of basaltic rocks, so the potential room for application is huge. Could this be the solution to all our problems? Unfortunately, there is a downside.

The water demand for dissolving CO2 is excessive, and the actual amount of emissions currently getting petrified is marginal: 10,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2017, which compensates the emissions of only 5,000 average cars for a year2. Not enough to make a noticeable change.

In the related CarbFix2 project, the goal is to connect the petrification of CO2 with Climeworks direct air capture of CO2, thus enabling a wider application of the concept. Still, there is a need for bigger players to get involved; some with economic power and global influence.

The combined process of Direct Air Capture, Electrolysis and the Air to Fuels technology [9].

Carbon Engineering claims to potentially capture up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 per single plant per year, compensating the emissions of about 500,000 cars. Considering that such plants can be built virtually anywhere, this might just be the solution to our CO2 crisis; if it wasn’t for its costs. Carbon Engineering estimates around 100 USD to 250 USD per ton of captured CO2. With approximately 33 billion tonnes of global CO2 emissions each year, stated by the International Energy Agency [10], this turns the process economically unbearable, even with Bill Gates on board.

We need simpler solutions.

Since geothermal power plants use no combustion processes, the amount of emissions is small in comparison to fossil-fuelled plants.

The emissions that do occur are natural gases included in the geothermal reservoirs. They consist mainly of CO2 and hydrogen sulfide.

2 Or 70 round trips between Stockholm and Barcelona via airplane. A mid-range car with 12.000 km a year produces about 2 tonnes of CO2. The Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737-800 with 186 seats produces in total about 143 tonnes of CO2 on a trip from Stockholm to Barcelona and back.

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Let plants do the work: Ocean fertilisation Whilst humans try eagerly to offset the environmental balance of the world, the oceans do their best to contain the damage. The so-called biological carbon pump describes the natural mechanism of CO2 absorbed by phytoplankton and its remineralization at the bottom of the sea.

By either using iron, nitrogen or phosphorus compounds, the growth of phytoplankton is stimulated and thus the potential CO2 captured increases accordingly.

The idea has been around for some time.

Following the London Convention (Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972) and the London Protocol (1996), the contracting parties decided on a framework for scientific research involving ocean fertilisation in 2010 [11].

© Jeremy Bishop

Feed the ocean with iron and cure the atmosphere.

The idea is simple, but as for today, the impacts are unforeseeable due to the underlying complexity.

The rise in phytoplankton caused by fertilisation has been proven in the field, but what happens afterwards is still under research. Critics warn about the decline of oxygen and the rise of other climate-relevant gases such as N2O, redeeming any benefits of CO2 reduction [12]. Moreover, there is still no concrete proof regarding the connection between the increase in phytoplankton and the decrease in atmospheric CO2.

Therefore, the London Protocol demands an explicit analysis of ocean fertilisation before any large-scale output of fertilisers can take place.

To reach a level of understanding which allows to safely implement the process will take quite some time. Furthermore, this raises the question, “to what extent can we manipulate the earth?”

Will we ever be able to predict how ecosystems react to human changes? Even with the constant breakthroughs in technology and science, there is a tipping point were human influence reaches its limit.

TECHNICAL | CARBON CAPTURE The End? The consequences of our careless greenhouse gas emissions become clearer every day. The evidence is there. The IPCC publication in 2018 was just another indication of our need to act now.

It seems like our historical debt cannot be dealt with just by cutting down our emissions. New approaches are needed.

Carbon Capture is one of them, and this brief introduction to four different processes indicates its potential. A lot is being done in this field.

Each approach has its promises and each one its obstacles.

Jupp Wolter, Haus der Geschichte, Bonn [13]

Š Adrian Balasoiu

The simple answer to the challenge of global warming is still none of them. The answer is us. With the daily choices we make, we decide where our planet is moving to. Do we eat meat, do we take the car, do we travel by plane to our next city hopping? The change could happen tomorrow but if mankind does not radically alter the way it consumes energy and cut down on CO2 emissions, then carbon capture might soon be our last hope.

The simple answer to the challenge of global warming is still none of them. The answer is us.

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OPINION | HAITI ON THE ROAD: STORY OF A LIFE-CHANGING PROJECT

Haiti on the road: story of a life-changing project Luigi Ghiani EDP R trainee, MSc SELECT Alumnus

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s an EIT InnoEnergy Master’s School SELECT student, I had the opportunity to conduct my Integrated Project of the Year (IPoY) based in Haiti, with a team of 10 colleagues. During this experience, four members of our team, including myself, were really lucky in having the chance to do a field trip to Haiti.

We achieved very successful results and, at the same time, we had a lifetime experience. This is a brief memory of our project, that I believe is worth sharing with other people from EIT InnoEnergy.

Port-au-Prince When we landed in Port-au-Prince our contact Evens was waiting for us outside the airport.

There were a lot of people trying to sell us taxi rides, so we had to 'dodge' the crowd to reach our transport: an old tuk-tuk, which clearly had some signs of previous accidents. The ride home was adventurous, the roads of Port-au-Prince are mostly in poor conditions: un-paved, full of potholes and flooded by the recent rain. For some days, our house was in the Fondation Haïtienne pour le Relevement et le Development (FHRD), an association that built some accommodation after the devastating earthquake in 2010, in cooperation with Architects Without Borders.

Left to right: Jalomi, Krzys, Evens, Riccardo and me © Luigi Ghiani

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Evens was our guide in Haiti. Along with being the manager of the accommodation, Evens also handles the finance, security and the maintenance at the location. He was our guide, and a great support in everything. The foundation has some people staying for the whole year to arrange meals, take care of the houses and run the education projects. It was a safe and quiet place where we felt welcome and at ease. The foundation was surrounded by walls, and the entrance was watched over day and night by a guard with a shotgun.

We had organised the trip for months, but from the first day we arrived, we realised that it would be difficult to stick to our plan, considering the

Morning at the FHRD © Luigi Ghiani

Concentrated Solar Cooker at the FHRD ©Luigi Ghiani

difficulties we were facing. Even buying a SIM card was an adventure: taking moto-taxies and riding around the city centre for hours, in the dust, smog and traffic jams, without really knowing if we were going in the right direction. That evening, our clothes and faces were literally covered in smog; we arrived just on time before it started to rain heavily, making a very loud noise on the metal roof of our house. We stayed in darkness for some hours because of a black-out: in Port-au-Prince they are very frequent, especially after sunset, and backup power is limited to those who can afford buying a car battery.

The project Haiti is the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the World.

It has been tremendously affected by several natural disasters, with the most significant in the 20th century being four hurricanes in 2008, an earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 [1]. The public energy/electricity utility Électricité d’Haïti (EdH) owns most of the electricity network and about 25% of the population has access to electricity, of which only half are legally connected to the grid.

A majority of the electricity production is based on imported fossil fuels. The residential sector depends heavily on wood and charcoal fuels which has caused severe deforestation. In theory, Haiti currently has 400 MW capacity and only 63% is currently operational [2,3]. Also, two thirds of the electricity produced is lost during transmission and distribution, with half of these losses associated to theft.

The project we worked on was based in the National Cement Plant of Haiti (CINA). The owner of the plant, Cementos Argos, is a Colombian multinational company, the fifth largest concrete producer in Latin America. CINA encounters harsh competition worldwide, in particular from Turkey.

The production of cement is an energy intensive process – electricity is used to run shredders, grinders, dryers and several other machines, hence, the cost of electricity is a critical factor for their competitiveness. CINA produces electricity

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OPINION | HAITI ON THE ROAD: STORY OF A LIFE-CHANGING PROJECT

Visit at the FHRD © Luigi Ghiani

with an off-grid power plant that runs on Diesel and heavy fuel oil. In Source Matelas, a local community of 15,000 people, CINA Foundation built school facilities, a medical centre, sports courts and currently supplies electricity for 8 hours per day.

In the days that followed, with the help of CINA employees, we arranged our visits to the cement plant and to the local community. From the visit, we tried to collect as much data as possible on the consumption habits of the locals, and we understood several implications of the project that went much beyond the technical aspects. Many questions were open for us to find solutions: how to set up a reliable and more sustainable system, in conditions of extreme uncertainty? How to improve life conditions of people keeping the cement plant competitive?

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On the road to Môle-Saint-Nicolas © Luigi Ghiani

Môle-Saint-Nicolas For the second part of our stay, we arranged a field trip in the north of the country, to visit a micro-utility company called SIGORA. To reach Môle-Saint-Nicolas, our destination, we had to take a big four-wheel drive for 8 hours, crossing the Haitian countryside, mountains and a desertic area on the west coast.

The trip gave us a broad view of the country - out of the capital, most of the people live in small villages with no access to electricity, clean water and other basic services. The fishermen on the desertic coast trade their fish with vegetables coming from the countryside and the mountain. Once per day, some traders come with their motorbikes and exchange goods after embarking on a long and dangerous journey, on rocky and narrow roads. Some kids were shovelling mud out of our way as we passed, followed by requesting money in exchange for the 'work' they just performed.

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Visit at the cement plant Š Luigi Ghiani

The panorama changed when we reached MĂ´le-Saint-Nicolas, the place where Christopher Columbus landed in his first expedition to America, and where the admiral ship sunk. The place is a natural paradise, a wonderful bay with crystalline water and luxuriant vegetation.

Here, SIGORA runs a microgrid by employing mostly local people in the construction, operation and maintenance. The national grid is hundreds of kilometres away from the region, forgotten by the national government and with no realistic hope of seeing an improvement of the infrastructures.

With SIGORA we visited the surroundings and the amazing coast on the north, where a wind farm will be installed soon. Frank, our guide, was an engineer without borders from the US, very knowledgeable and committed to keeping the system in proper operation. What we could see was a completely different environment from Port-au-Prince and from the surrounding areas.

Our accommodation for the first night were individual tents on the beach. The wind from the ocean was very strong, and I woke up in the morning with my tent completely collapsed on my head. At lunch time, after a visit to the photovoltaic plant of SIGORA, we met some children that were going to collect water from the only available tap. Each day, they are responsible for carrying the water to their houses on the cliffs. We could not understand a single word of what they were saying, but a frisbee was enough to become friends and we played a lot with them on the beach.

The locals are very proud and satisfied of their connection to the microgrid. The electricity charges can be purchased in local shops of phone SIM cards, boosting the revenues of these retailers by around 100 dollars per month.

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OPINION | HAITI ON THE ROAD: STORY OF A LIFE-CHANGING PROJECT On the other side of the bay, there is a tiny fishermen village, completely isolated. Every day, a couple of boats were sailing to our side of the bay to collect drinkable water, to be taken back to their village. SIGORA managed to install a photovoltaic system with batteries and streetlights in this remote group of houses. From our accommodation we could see the lights of the village in the night.

SIGORA is not a charity organisation, but rather profit seeking, with an inclusive business model.

The idea behind the business model of SIGORA is that electricity is not for free, but people are interested in paying for it because they already spend money to purchase energy, like candles, kerosene and solar chargers for their phones. As a microgrid can provide a better service at a lower cost, the only challenges are to team up with local leaders, thus convincing them to agree with the conditions and to involve the population in every aspect in order to create a sense of belonging and ownership. No project can have success in the long run without these prerequisites. SIGORA definitely managed to build up a sustainable system in an extremely challenging area and was planning to expand soon to the desertic region we saw during our ride to the north. Seeing this miracle was one of the most inspiring moments as an energy

engineer; we saw with our own eyes that access to electricity with a sustainable business model is a reality even in conditions of extreme poverty.

During our ride back to Port-au-Prince, the kids saw us leaving and started to run after us asking us to stay. It was so clear that the people were much more relaxed outside the capital, and probably less used to the crowd of NGOs that are present everywhere in Port-au-Prince.

In the last days in Port-au-Prince, we collected our findings about the cement plant and about SIGORA. In a few days we learned so much from such an incredible experience. We could see with our own eyes how electricity can positively change the lives of people, and how a company that cooperates with locals can really build a sustainable business model, even in conditions of extreme poverty. The electricity supply of Source Matelas was for free, and people were used to receiving power without considering the costs associated with it. Changing this mindset would probably be very hard, and a long cooperation with the local leaders would be necessary.

SIGORA for sure gave us a lesson on sustainability and community development.

Fishermen sailing to collect water for their village Š Luigi Ghiani

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Acknowledgements Our project was presented to the management of Celsia in Colombia by the other members of our team, and to our SELECT classmates at the spring seminar in Helsinki 2018. The details of the project are not the focus of this article, but our report is available under request for all the interested people.

I would like to thank EIT InnoEnergy, Argos and Celsia for giving us all the support we needed to make it happen, Evens Ducasse for his fundamental support in Haiti. I would like to thank Brendan and the staff of the CommUnity Post for giving us the possibility to share our experience.

My greatest thank you goes to my incredible team-mates, that are for me great friends before colleagues, and shared with me this life-changing experience. Thank you to: Miguel Hernandez, Marco Barbaro, Łukasz Chmielnicki, Algirdas Dučinskas, Krzysztof Działo, Leon Haupt, Kiran Raj Rajan, Jalomi Maayan Tardif, Riccardo Toffanin, Tara Trafton.

Visiting the wind farm site on the north coast © Luigi Ghiani

From left to right, top: Leon and Algirdas; mid row: Łukasz, Jalomi, Riccardo, Tara and Miguel; front: Kiran, Luigi, Marco and Krzys © Leon Haupt

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TECHNICAL | ENERGY AND WATER: ONE DOESN’T FLOW WITHOUT THE OTHER

Energy and water: one doesn’t flow without the other Laura María Pérez Caballero MSc SELECT Student

E

nergy and water are intricately connected in such a way that, as concisely stated by the International Energy Agency (IEA), "one doesn’t flow without the other" [1]. Energy availability is the pillar for social and economic progress and water holds the key to energy production infrastructures. On the other side of the equation, energy is required to make water resources available for human use and consumption.

From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC published in October 2018, we can see that the world is heading in the wrong direction, with severe impacts arriving sooner than expected [2]. Over the past decade, communities around the world have experienced record-breaking waterrelated extremes – floods, droughts, storms, and coral bleaching – because of the rising global temperatures. Global warming is expected to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052, which will lead to disrupted water supplies and amplified flood and drought disasters. Countries and communities that are exposed to these risks but have not invested in good water management will suffer the most [3].

The IPCC report was a key scientific input into the UN Climate Change 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24), held in December 2018, where governments needed to agree on the roadmap for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement. COP25 in December 2019 was the deadline for countries to update their first Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to meet the goals.

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The Energy Water Challenge [1].

3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Although the role of water is often forgotten in the international climate debate, the water sector community is coming together to leverage opportunities and awareness about water’s full potential to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change [4]. In line with this, UN-Water has selected the theme of “Water and Climate Change” for the World Water Day campaign and the World Water Development Report (WWDR) in 2020 [5].

As UN secretary-general António Guterres underlined, "We must rise to the challenge of climate action and do what science demands before it is too late" [6]. The water-energy nexus, defined as the energy intensity in the water sector or the water intensity in the energy sector, will play a pivotal role.

Water-Energy Nexus Present day water and energy systems are interdependent. Significant amounts of water are needed in almost all energy production and electricity generation processes, from generating hydropower, to cooling in thermal power plants, extracting and processing fuels, or irrigating crops for biofuels [7]. The energy sector accounts for 10% of global water withdrawals.

Conversely, the water sector needs energy to extract, treat and transport water of proper quality for diverse human uses. Treating wastewater prior to its return to the environment requires even more energy [8]. About 4% of global electricity consumption is estimated to be used to extract,

distribute and treat water and wastewater, and these requirements are predicted to intensify in the coming years.

The energy sector accounts for 10% of global water withdrawals Despite their interdependency, energy and water systems have always been developed, managed, and regulated independently. The complex water-energy nexus demands an integrated and proactive approach, especially considering that over the coming period population growth and rapidly expanding economies will place additional demands on water and energy, while several regions around the world are already experiencing significant water and energy shortages. An integrated development of the energy and water strategies is of paramount importance. Efforts should be made to minimise trade-offs and maximise synergies between the two sectors.

Good management of the connections between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) and affordable and clean energy (SDG 7) is essential for successful attainment of both sets of goals [10]. Besides, there are plenty of economically viable opportunities for energy and water savings that can alleviate pressures on both systems, if considered in an integrated manner.

Energy and Water’s Interdependence. © Thirsty Energy, 2013.

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TECHNICAL | ENERGY AND WATER: ONE DOESN’T FLOW WITHOUT THE OTHER *ARTICLE TYPE* | *TITLE*

Water matters The Nobel Week Dialogue 2018, which took place in Stockholm, brought together the world’s leading scientists and experts, policymakers and the general public to stimulate discussion on how "water matters" to us all as a resource, for our health, for the environment and in culture, being hence essential to the survival of humanity [11]. During this event, Prof. Johan Rockström, co-chair of Future Earth, the world’s largest research network for global sustainability science, and executive director of Stockholm Resilience Centre, talked about "The future of humanity on earth". When speaking about the SDGs, he said that they should be operated as a “wedding cake”, where water is in the base for a stable planet, together with climate and biodiversity. This implies that economies and societies should be seen as embedded parts of the biosphere [12].

Now, we must transition from the current sectoral approach towards a global perspective where the economy serves society, so that it evolves within the safe operating space of the planet [12].

Therefore, the SDGs need to be seen as a whole, however industries can be expected to prioritize certain goals where they can make the biggest impact.

Another interesting conclusion that was highlighted during the panel discussion on "Water and Climate Change" at the Nobel Week Dialogue was that “if mitigation is about gases, adaptation is about water”, suggesting that water is the fundamental prerequisite to have a stable and resilient Earth system.

“Sustainable use of water for multiple purposes must remain a way of life and needs to be at the centre of building resilient cities and human settlements and ensuring food security in a climate 23

change context”, said Mariet Verhoef-Cohen, president of the Women for Water Partnership, and co-chair of Water Scarcity in Agriculture Platform (WASAG) during the UN Climate Change Conference COP23 in 2017 [13].

Even though water tends to be a local issue, the consequences of its unwise management have a global impact. At the current time, 2.5 billion people lack sanitation and 663 million people do not have access to safe drinking water despite the fact that water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are among the most basic of human needs [14].

By 2050, 40% of the world’s population will face water shortages, accelerating migration and triggering conflict, while some regions could lose up to 6% of their economic output unless water is better managed.

Sustainable use of water for multiple purposes must remain a way of life Improved water management would lead not only to greater water availability, but also to significant energy savings, avoided greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions, and reduced salinization.

The international water community signals that obstacles in accessing funding to meet climate change investment requirements in the water sector will hinder the achievement of SDG 6, as well as endangering the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep the average global temperature rise below 1.5ºC. 3RD EDITION | 2020

© Nicholas Rean

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE

The global water cycle is intensifying due to climate change, with wet regions generally becoming wetter and dry regions becoming even drier [15]. Energy production and use is the largest source of global GHG emissions, the main cause of global warming. However, efforts to tackle climate change in the energy sector can exacerbate water stress or be limited by water availability.

A coordinated approach to climate change across the water-energy nexus is crucial given that the responses to climate change are generally crosssectoral [16].

Renewable energy in the nexus Given the interlinkages between the water and energy sectors, meeting the growing demand for resources is a challenge. An anticipated 35% rise

in global energy demand by 2035 could increase water consumption for energy by 85%, according to International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

A study published by this agency has shone a light on the water-energy nexus, pointing out that renewable energy technologies could address some of the trade-offs between water and energy, bringing substantial benefits to both sectors [17].

Across their life cycle, some renewable energy technologies are less water-intensive than the conventional options. Renewable energy resources such as solar, wind and tidal are readily available and do not require fuel processing and associated water inputs. Bioenergy, however, could need large water inputs depending on feedstock production.

Residue-based bioenergy requires relatively less water compared to energy crops.

Energy and Water’s Interdependence. © Thirsty Energy, 2013.

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TECHNICAL | ENERGY AND WATER: ONE DOESN’T FLOW WITHOUT THE OTHER During the power generation phase, water requirements for wind or solar photovoltaics are negligible compared to conventional thermoelectric plants, where large quantities of water are needed for cooling. Solar or wind could withdraw up to 200 times less water than a coal power plant to produce the same amount of electricity.

Geothermal and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) have higher water needs for operation. Recent projects have shown that application of dry cooling can significantly reduce the water use.

At an energy-system level, increasing the share of renewable energy can reduce water use considerably. A preliminary analysis on REmap 20301 selected countries show that increasing renewables penetration leads to a substantial reduction in water consumption and withdrawal in the power sector. By 2030, a substantial scaleup in renewable energy deployment could reduce water withdrawals by nearly half for the United Kingdom, by more than a quarter for the United States, Germany and Australia, and over 10% in India [17].

Renewable energy technologies can boost water security by improving accessibility, affordability and safety. They can provide access to costcompetitive, sustainable and secure energy along different segments of the water supply chain. With increasing water scarcity, moving larger volumes of water across longer distances will mean an increase in the energy intensity of water provision.

Renewable energy is a reliable alternative to meeting growing energy demand for water pumping and transport, desalination and heating, while ensuring the long-term reliability of water supply.

Application of renewable energy solutions in water management will lead not only to avoided GHG emissions but also to greater water availability in remote areas. Some low-carbon technologies, such as solar and wind, require little water; in contrast to other decarbonisation pathways that rely on biofuels, CSP, carbon capture or nuclear power, which consume more water.

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Nature-based solutions Currently, water management remains heavily dominated by traditional grey infrastructure, and the enormous potential for nature-based solutions (NBS) remains underutilized.

Grey infrastructure refers to the human-built infrastructure for water resources such as water and wastewater treatment plants, pipelines, and reservoirs. On the other hand, NBS use or mimic natural processes to enhance water availability, improve water quality and reduce risks associated with water-related disasters and climate change.

Renewable energy solutions in water management will lead (...) to greater water availability in remote areas Green infrastructure is the “strategic use of networks of natural lands, working landscapes, and other open spaces to conserve ecosystem values and functions and provide associated benefits to human populations” [18]. NBS include green infrastructure that can substitute, augment or work in parallel with grey infrastructure in a cost-effective manner. The goal is to find the most appropriate blend of green and grey investments to maximize benefits and system efficiency while minimizing costs and trade-offs [15].

NBS, such as planting trees to replenish forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, and restoring wetlands, are a sustainable and cost-effective way to help rebalance the water cycle, mitigate the effects of climate change and improve human health and livelihoods. NBS contribute to the creation of a circular economy while helping to protect the natural environment and reduce pollution. In fact, the World Water Day theme in 2018, ‘Nature for Water’, explored nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.

IRENA’s REmap 2030 is a roadmap to double the share of renewable energy by 2030.

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3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE

Conclusion

Š Jon Flobrant

Economic and population growth are driving up demand for energy and water, especially in developing countries. Meeting this surge of demand presents a tremendous challenge, given competing needs for limited resources amidst incessantly intensifying climate change effects. To overcome the increasing constraints the world faces, we need to fundamentally reconsider how we generate and consume energy in relation to the water sector.

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© Luigi Ghiani

*ARTICLE TYPE* THROUGH THE EYES | *TITLE* OF THE COMMUNITY

Portugal was for me the beginning of a new life, and I owe so much to this country.

One thing that impressed me is that Portugal is at the same time old and modern, the traditions are very strong and somehow they mix very well with the innovativation that the country is experiencing.

Innovation is also the ability to accept and welcome changes without fear This picture was taken in Fundão, 18th October 2018.

- Luigi Ghiani

EDP R trainee, MSc SELECT Alumnus

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3RD EDITION | 2020

Lisbon

European Green Capital 2020 With the vast majority of European citizens living in urban areas, it is essential to ensure that cities are healthy and sustainable. In 2010, the European Commission created the European Green Capital Award, to recognise cities which should be taken as an example for their efforts to become environment-friendly.

After cities like Copenhagen, Ljubljana and Oslo, Lisbon was announced as the European Green Capital Award for 2020! Lisbon was recognised for its efforts towards achievement of sustainable mobility, sustainabe green areas and development of eco-innovations related to water, waste treatment, education and employment [1].

“The Jury felt that Lisbon – that started its journey towards sustainability during a period of economic crisis – can be an inspiration and a role-model for many cities across the EU, demonstrating clearly that sustainability and economic growth go hand in hand (European Commission [2]).”

© Claudio Schwarz

Congratulations Lisbon!

TECHNICAL | ELECTRICITY TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE

Electricity: the silver bullet to power the world and mitigate climate change Gustavo Gomes Pereira MSc SELECT Student

I

n December of 2015, at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP), more than 190 nations found common ground and agreed on a framework to attempt to mitigate climate change. Gathered in the French capital, a multilateral accord, known to most as the Paris Agreement, was signed by global leaders from all corners of the globe.

World leaders seemed committed to (re)shape their agendas based on sustainability principles to prevent temperature levels from rising by more than 2ºC relative to pre-industrial levels.

The European Union set an even more ambitious target for its members, aiming for an 80-95% reduction of carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. The non-binding agreement, despite unenforceable, represents a new chapter in policy-making and legislation to prevent human activity from changing the world’s climate in irreversible and unpredictable ways.

Socio-economic development of the past two centuries has drastically increased the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) There is an overwhelming amount of evidence and data from the scientific community showing how the socio-economic development of the past two centuries has drastically increased the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. The impact of

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higher levels of GHGs on the planet’s ecosystem happens as a consequence of newly introduced imbalances to natural cycles - from temperature changes, to irregular ocean streams and the melting of glacial Arctic ice. Consequences can already be observed in several places, with increased frequency of extreme weather events observed worldwide, costing billions to the global economy and threatening geopolitical stability.

The increased levels of GHGs in the atmosphere closely linked to human activity come mostly from agricultural activities (i.e. farming) and the use of fossil fuels as an energy source. Therefore, if COP21 is to be taken seriously, it is paramount that clean and renewable energy becomes the prevailing way of powering humanity’s progress forward.

In this context electrification, if adopted pragmatically and innovatively, represents a promising potential to help us solve the climate challenge. Electrifying all the energy consumption that currently comes from fossil-fuels would require drastic transformations in the generation, supply and use of energy across all sectors of the economy. Electricity is not intrinsically a carbonfree energy source, since it can be - and in most cases still is - generated by burning hydrocarbons such as coal and natural gas. Thus, it is essential that the electrification process is coupled with a complete shift to clean and renewable sources.

'Electrifying everything' to help solve climate change may seem illogical and unrealistic at first.

Historically, power plants have been mostly built and operated on the basis of carbon intensive and inefficient conversion processes, such as 3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE the burning of coal and oil derivatives. An added layer of difficulty comes from the fact that there are currently more than 1 billion people for whom access to the electric grid is unreliable or non-existent, and electricity use considered a luxury. Moreover, electricity currently accounts for only about 20% of the world’s total energy consumption. However, it is already the fastest growing source of demand. Based on IEA estimates, while overall energy demand rose by 1.7% in 2018, electricity demand grew by 4% that same year, and is expected to continue to outpace overall consumption for the next 25 years [1].

Widespread electrification of energy use has been fantasized about and discussed for many years, but implementation has always faced tough competition from cheaper1, mostly fossil-based alternatives (i.e. coal, petroleum and natural gas).

Transportation, for example, is an industry with very high barriers to entry due to the presence of highly entrenched conglomerates with vast financial means, political reach and significant resistance to any disruption forces that may threaten the status-quo.

Nevertheless, technological advances experienced by solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and more recently lithium-ion batteries have helped bridge the gap in many areas where electricity was thought to never be able to play a role. As a result, harnessing energy from moving electrons

is becoming more and more viable. According to the IEA, electricity is the fastest-growing source of energy demand. The sector already attracts more investment than the oil and gas industries combined and has been transformed by the grid penetration of clean and renewable energy sources such as solar PV and wind energy [1].

“The electricity sector is witnessing its most dramatic transformation since its birth more than a century ago.”

- Dr Fatih Birol, IEA Executive Director Humans discovered and started using electricity centuries ago. Although today it is a well-known technology, ubiquitous to our daily lives in Europe and most of the developed world, many of its properties and characteristics are still underappreciated. Electricity is highly fungible and interchangeable, meaning that regardless of the point of production, it can be utilised seamlessly without 'compatibility' issues. It is also 100% clean at point of consumption - no exhaust fumes coming out of your coffee maker or laptop!

World’s total final energy consumption and growing fuel source2 - IEA

1. Not including the cost of externalities such as health complications and premature deaths caused by pollution.

2. Percentage labels represent consumption growth for the respective five years interval.

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©Rodion Kutsaev

*ARTICLE TECHNICAL TYPE* | ELECTRICITY | *TITLE* TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE

Finally, electricity can be easily converted into other forms of energy, such as thermal (heat pumps), mechanical (electric motors) or electrochemical (batteries). This flexibility comes, in most cases, with efficiency gains, as electricity conversions usually incur lower thermal losses. In the context of vehicles for instance, electric motors are simpler, having about one hundred times fewer moving parts than their internal combustion counterparts, generate less heat losses and have more than twice the efficiency. As Nate Adams writes in his blog "Nate the House Whisperer":

In addition, electric power can be transmitted over long distances - several hundreds of kilometres from point of production to point of consumption, with minimal losses (less than 5% in modern grids).

This is especially true with the advent of new technologies, such as ultra-high voltage lines.

Unlike hydrocarbons, electricity can be generated in a clean and sustainable manner from several sources. The sun, wind, ocean tides, biomass and hydropower provide a wide range of sustainable options that can be utilised based on local availability. Such flexibility helps ensure energy independence and security, decoupling energy access from geopolitical stability and international commodity prices.

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“Until recently, electric houses and cars were a sacrifice. Electric stoves weren't great to cook on. Heat pumps didn't work well in cold climates. Electric cars were glorified golf carts. All that has changed in the last few years with things like induction cooking, cold climate heat pumps, and Tesla cars. Now that there are good electric options for our homes and cars, there is a viable path to #ElectrifyEverything that is not only just as good as using fossil fuels, but often is better.”

It is important to note that there are limitations as to which end-uses can be electrified with commercially available technology. Certain industries and sectors, commonly referred to as hard-to-abate, still possess technical barriers to becoming fully fossil-fuel free. Some examples of such are: high temperature industrial processes (i.e. cement and steel production), aviation, ocean freight and shipping, will require further technological development and innovation.

3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE However, these challenging areas should not stand in the way of expanding electrification further, as we have already achieved commercially viable alternatives for most energy intensive activities. A feasible solution for these hard-toabate sectors is simply a matter of time, since there is no fundamental or scientific reason why they can’t be electrified (think of where the electric vehicle industry was just ten years ago).

Despite the many possibilities for electrification of our daily activities and socio-economic development, the need to couple the electrification process to renewable and clean power generation cannot be overstated. In this regard, there are even more reasons for making the shift.

'Traditional' power generation methods based on burning fossil-based hydrocarbons is an incredibly inefficient process, in which almost two thirds of the energy generated ends up as thermal waste.

Electricity, on the other hand, is an energy carrier of much higher quality, since it can be fully converted to useful energy, and thus offers improved conversion efficiency. The significance of the efficiency gains is such that the electrification of energy intensive sectors such as transport and heating, can be implemented without inducing major increases in overall energy demand - in fact, primary energy consumption could potentially decrease due to the reduction in thermal losses.

According to the IEA, if EVs were pushed to 100% of new car sales in developed economies by 2040 (today it is about 1%), growth in electricity demand would only increase by about 1.1% annually [1]. This is mainly because all the heat waste generated in a combustion engine is almost nonexistent in an electrical motor.

Last October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued its latest report highlighting the need to accelerate our climate change mitigation efforts, emphasizing the need

for more action. The agency, which employs scientists and researchers to study and monitor climate behaviour for more than a century, calls our attention to the importance of keeping temperatures below the 1.5ºC threshold - deemed ‘ideal’ in the Paris agreement. The report states that the small difference of 0.5ºC from the established 2ºC target could avoid important thresholds from being crossed and prevent several catastrophic consequences around the globe.

Nevertheless, for the 1.5ºC scenario to become even remotely possible, CO2 emissions must be halved by 2030, and reach net-zero levels by 2050.

Current trends, though better than a decade ago, must be further improved and additional measures incorporated. If we are to keep the promises made in Paris, business as usual cannot be considered an option for going forward. Decisions made today will, more than ever, impact the livelihood of young people and especially the next generations. There has never been a more alarming time to tackle the climate crisis, and the only response capable of that requires unprecedented levels of coordinated global action.

Electrification - from industry to transport, manufacturing to heating - represents a path to decarbonizing Europe’s, and more generally the world’s energy sector. A holistic approach to this transition will not only help mitigate climate change, but also bring economic development and a higher standard of living to millions of people around the globe. Should it become a reality, this transition will certainly not happen overnight, but there’s a clear path to be taken, which requires engagement and collaboration between several stakeholders. Politicians, businesses, scientists, researchers, engineers and all citizens must come together and align their (our) efforts to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future. The science is in, and we are quickly running out of time before irreversible thresholds are crossed.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

- Native american proverb 32

© Corey Duncan

THROUGH THE EYES OF THE COMMUNITY

This was taken near Bhagsu, India where I was for roughly one week in August 2019. The whole month of August was a working holiday as I was traveling around north India while also volunteering for a waste management NGO called Waste Warriors.

A friend and colleague of mine decided one day when there was little rain (as it was monsoon and this was one of the wettest regions in India, it rained everyday) that we would hike up to the peak of Mount Triund. We took some waste bags with us to clean up the trail while hiking as locals are notorious for throwing waste on the trails. Singleplastic consumerism is a newer concept there and they lack the education and awareness of throwing litter in nature; a frustrating but true fact. But, as we went up the mountain we met and started chatting with some Indian college students. They saw what we were doing as asked why we were doing it, and we simply replied, “because it doesn’t belong here”. As we talked and walked, they also

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started to pick up waste and throw it in our bag.

At one point, we found a trash bag sliced open and the contents all over the place. It was too much for our already half-full bag, but the kids spoke up and said they would take our extra bag, fill it with the trash, and bring it back down the mountain themselves.

There is a social perception of garbage pickers in India that they are the lowest in society and ridiculed. But, when Indians saw foreigners picking up THEIR waste, I could see it made an impact on people. It made me realise this simple act of selflessness was enough to at least spark the thought of better waste management and encouraged me that people can change their ways with enough education and inspiration. This is a sustainable world I believe in.

- Corey Duncan MSc RENE Student

3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE

The future needs highquality, green batteries.

And it needs lots of them.

Join the mission to make it a reality. northvolt.com/career

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OPINION | SUSTAINABILITY BY EDUCATION

Sustainability by Education Empowering the leaders of tomorrow Eloi Bigas CDI Fellow, RENE Alumnus

S

ustainability by Education is a multi-cultural and cross-functional global association created and run by former EIT InnoEnergy master's students. Our aim is to raise youth awareness about climate change and the current environmental crisis. To that end, we design and carry out workshops in schools and other educational institutions, aimed at children of all ages from all around the world. We strongly believe that the younger generations will be the key driver of meaningful environmental change in the future; consequently, in order to enable this change, the educational system needs to move fast towards a more sustainability-focused education. We’re passionate about this mission and looking for collaborators to expand! Will you help us?

Who are we? The origins of the association We are all former EIT InnoEnergy master's students with a strong passion for sustainability and the energy transition. Having enjoyed experiences in educating children throughout our lives (be it as sport instructors, private lesson teachers or scout counselors), we made the decision to merge both worlds, sustainability and education, in a single project. Within the framework of EIT InnoEnergy, we launched the project in our first year of the master’s and consolidated it during the second.

Now, spread around the world, we continue to work with passion and determination, with the aim of expanding our network and bringing our value to more and more children around the globe.

© SbE

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3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Our current business model Our association is divided into four main business units: Content development: We create the workshops and constantly update them with the feedback from our customers, in order to adapt them to each educational centre’s necessities. We also find new ways to approach other topics related to sustainability, and research new innovations in the educational world.

Workshop implementation: We physically prepare and perform the workshop, once a school is contacted and the workshop is set. An essential part of our work is to find and form instructors who can help during the workshop! Instructors can be people external to the association, who collaborate with us either in a regular or extraordinary basis.

Customer network: We act as a point of communication with the schools and other institutions we work with, from the initial contact meeting throughout the whole process. Additionally, we generate contact documentation and try to spread our project proposal to potential customers. We also look to establish partnerships with similar associations.

Communication: We manage our website and social media. We curate all the content and edit the educational articles that come from external collaborators.

At the same time, the members of Sustainability by Education (SbE) are organised by regions of activity, which work transversally with the business units. The core region of activity is Barcelona (which also acts as SbE’s headquarters), but the association also has regular activity in Paris, Lisbon, and some parts of Germany, Italy, Morocco and Mexico. And we are always looking for ways to expand!

Nuremberg Paris

Barcelona

Bologna

Alberobello

Lisbon

Querétaro

Mexico City

© Sara Vieira

Rabat

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OPINION | SUSTAINABILITY BY EDUCATION The bases of our workshops In order to develop a workshop on a topic, we study how the educational system covers it and we identify its weaknesses and shortcomings usually in close collaboration with a school or a set of teachers. With this information, we design several content blocks that will cover the totality of the content we want to deliver; each block has to be adaptable to different ages, languages and cultures. © SbE

Our best-performing workshop, on basic concepts related to Energy and Sustainability, approaches the three following concepts: Sustainability: What does it mean, what is a sustainable society, and how can we integrate these notions in our daily lives and in our future jobs. We also touch upon the concepts of energy equality and resource depletion.

Energy Efficiency and Rational Use of Energy: Why is it so important to save energy and what actions can we take to avoid inefficiency.

Renewable Energy and the Energy system: How does it work, what are its impacts, why renewability is so important and what examples can we find in the real world.

However, we are also developing workshops in other topics such as Jobs in the Energy Sector, The Science of Climate Change and Electric Mobility.

All workshops, which have a duration of between 1h30-2h and are aimed at groups of 20-40 children, are highly interactive and foster the students' participation. Different types of games, activities and quizzes aim at teaching the topics at hand in an engaging and meaningful way.

© SbE

Our association’s activity is in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, particularly with numbers 4, 7 and 10-13 [1].

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Our work until now In the past year, we have performed a total of 14 workshops in 7 different educational centres, spread across 3 countries. A total of more than 370 children have participated in our activities!

© SbE

We want to reach as many children as possible with our workshops, which is why we have presence in different cities. One of our main objectives is to keep expanding, working with new educational systems and adapting our content to different cultures. No matter if you are in one of our main centres of activity (Barcelona, Lisbon, Paris) or somewhere else - there’s a way for you to collaborate.

How can YOU join us?

If you like what you are reading – know that you could be the next collaborator! You can participate in the way that suits you best; there are different ways for you to join us!

• As a sporadic instructor. You can use our already-prepared material to carry out a workshop in your hometown or in the country you are studying now! You will only commit to the specific workshop and we would train you; therefore, you wouldn’t need to spend much time!

• As a more stable team member. In this option you could join the Unit you like the most and collaborate with us to the extent you want! You choose your commitment and we adapt the work to it.

We are looking for collaborators, especially in Barcelona and Lisbon, where we have a lot of things going on. But a workshop can be performed anywhere in the world, so don’t hesitate to write us expressing interest on a certain region! Plus, by getting together with fellow EIT InnoEnergy students studying in your city… you never know what you might be able to create!

Send an e-mail to sustainability.by.education@gmail.com and let us know what you would be interested in! Together, we’ll discuss what suits both of us best!

Contact us!

Phone: +34 689 433 163 Email: sustainability.by.education@gmail.com

© SbE

Web: http://sustainability-by-education.org/

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TECHNICAL | UNVEILING A NEW REFUELLING STATION CONCEPT

Unveiling a new refuelling station concept Marco Grippa CH2P Project manager, MSc Smart cities Alumnus

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n 2016, the transportation sector ranked second in GHG emissions. It accounts for 27% of overall European emissions, including international shipping. This trend has continued to increase over the years due to rising globalisation and open markets [1].

The European Commission launched the Horizon2020 programme (H2020), in order to support innovation and mitigate the effect of the worldwide climate crisis in a well-defined manner. With over â‚Ź75 billion of funding available starting from 2014, the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever aims to take great innovative and sustainable ideas from labscale to the market [2].

solution: zero tailpipe emission vehicles that are ready to be deployed to the market. Nevertheless, FCEVs lack a widespread infrastructure of refuelling stations.

What if electricity and hydrogen generation was combined in a new concept of a Hydrogen Refuelling Station (HRS)? In 2017, one of the projects funded by FCH-JU started exploring this possibility. CH2P (fostering the Clean transport transition for a H2althy Place to live) is developing an innovative energy technology for an on-site plant cogenerating hydrogen, electricity and heat.

It aims to raise the current Technology Readiness Level1 from 4 to 6, where the system will be built by 2022. [5]

What if electricity and hydrogen generation was combined in a new concept of a Hydrogen Refuelling Station?

Under this programme, the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) narrows the wide scope of H2020 to the energy and transportation sectors by focusing on activities related to fuel cell applications, as effective conversion technology, and hydrogen generation, as a green energy carrier. The main goal is to accelerate their market introduction, fostering their potential as an instrument to achieve a carbon-free energy system and, in turn, reduce dependency on fossil fuels [3].

In the transportation industry, Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) are proven to be a tangible 1. Technology Readiness Level (TRL) is a scale from one to nine that measures the maturity of a technology to be deployed in the market. [4]

The crucial component of the technology is the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) powered by natural gas and a high efficiency thermal integration with an implementation of hydrogen purification and separation technologies.

Two systems will be designed, tested, and in its complete configuration, built throughout the project. The proof of concept system will enable a maximum production of 20 kg/day of hydrogen and a peak electricity output of 25 kWel. At the end of the project, a prototype system of 40 kg/day hydrogen generation and 50 kWel electricity production will be operated at Shell’s Technology Centre Amsterdam.

3RD EDITION | 2020

© CH2P Consortium

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE

To conclude the project, the system designed will be compared in performance, environmental and economic impacts to other conventional hydrogen plants, such as methane steam reforming and hydrolysis technologies.

The concept of the entire system is depicted in the image above. The inlet natural gas stream passes through desulfurisation equipment to remove contaminants within the main flow and reformer. Together with previously treated air, the natural gas flow is then fed into the SOFC where the conversion happens to obtain electricity as the main output and steam and carbon dioxide (CO2) as by-products.

The output of SOFC’s cathode, exhaust air, is used to oxidise its inlet SOFC flow, whereas the anode outlet delivers the exhaust syngas to convert the remaining CO into CO2 and produce hydrogen (H2). The syngas is cooled down, compressed and separated from other gases, via pressure swing adsorption process and, eventually, released through HRS. Off gases from H2 conditioning and separation zone are carried back to the burner, for generating additional fuel input to the SOFC; even the water consumed throughout the operation is collected and recycled for steam generation.

Finally, the H2 generated has an almost pure level and less than 200 ppb CO2 level, fulfilling the standard requirements for H2 production plant.

In addition, a crucial thermal integration of SOFC with H2 generation is required, because of the multiple parameters to handle within the system and the different CH2P operating modes to setup; hence, a cascade heat exchanger network is designed and integrated.

The entire system will be set in place in a container divided in multiple big compartments (hot section, cold section and syngas compressor); accordingly, the key components of the cogeneration plant are [6]: • Hot Balance of Plant: working in the range of 300°C to 800°C, multiple hot components empower the steam methane reforming reactions, heat recovery and steam generation.

• Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack: the conversion from H2 to electricity takes place at high efficiency and temperature.

• Pressure Swing Adsorber (PSA): to remove the impurities from the clean H2 output stream.

• Compressor: for supplying the syngas to the PSA.

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TECHNICAL | UNVEILING A NEW REFUELLING STATION CONCEPT An advantage of CH2P is having flexible output generation, making CH2P easily able to match with the customers’ needs for H2 and electricity from the system. Therefore there are different possible system operation scenarios, according to the foreseen demand coming from the customer. Various options have been considered, and based on the operation of the Hydrogen Refuelling Station the most valuable productions scenarios are as follows (in % of maximum outputs): Operating mode

Gross electricity generation

Hydrogen production

1 2

17% 36%

10% 100%

3

100%

100%

4 5

50% 100%

50% 0%

The main end-users of CH2P are private vehicles (either hydrogen-fuelled or EV-powered) but, in the near future, the targets could be enlarged to ships and freight fleets.

Multiple benefits put this technology at the top of the hydrogen generation technology hierarchy, because of its competitive cost (price of H2 will be below 4.5€/kg), modularity (thanks to a scaling up of a small stack box), a 10 years lifetime, a specific in-field verification at Shell, dynamic production capacity (production according to the demand), and the purity of hydrogen generated (purity higher than 99,99%).

Moreover, CH2P enables the 'reverse' hydrogen economy: with the CH2P electricity generation is sold to the electrical grid, thus the higher the network electricity price, the lower the price of hydrogen produced, whereas conventional hydrogen generation plant uses electricity and has higher costs at higher electricity prices.

The extensive effort to achieve this goal is coming from a consortium made of 8 European participants, from 5 European countries. The Consortium is highly interdisciplinary: 4 SMEs, a large enterprise and 3 research institutes performers collectively capable to combine the different skills and infrastructures necessary to achieve the overall project objectives.

Stay tuned over the next months to see the final deployment of CH2P in place!

© Mattia Malfatti

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3RD EDITION | 2020

The configurator for Plug & Play Smart Home Devices

Smartivate is a young start-up based in Karlsruhe, Germany, founded by two InnoEnergy Alumni. In 2018, Smartivate was awarded the EXIST Business Start-up grant by the Federal Ministry of Economics & Technology (BMWi, Germany) for its unique & distinct business model. Smartivate built Europe’s first configurator for plug & play smart home devices, which serves as a digital consultant for homeowners & tenants & supports them in purchasing compatible smart home solutions so as to make their homes energy efficient, secure & more comfortable!

Recently, Smartivate was awarded the prestigious ‘Smart Home Deutschland Award’ for the year 2019, in the historic city hall of Berlin for its product development & added benefits it provides to the end consumer.

Although Smartivate’s configurator is a product for the end consumer, it is a B2B2C company which provides software as a service for e-commerce & aggregator platforms, Real-estate firms & utility companies.

It guides the user intuitively, understands the needs and suggests crossbranded compatible tailor-made solutions based on their budget, preferences and more importantly their existing home infrastructure.

Check us out: www.smartivate.de

Interested in Smart Homes, but don’t know where to start?

Try configuring your own smart home here: https://smartivate.co/uandi/ In Co-operation with

INTERVIEW | THE AZORES ARCHIPELAGO: POWERED BY GEOTHERMAL

The Azores archipelago: powered by geothermal A talk with

Maria da Graça Rangel Eletricidade dos Açores

Anna Schaeffer The CommUnity Post

E

ach year, EIT InnoEnergy Master’s School students attending Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon enjoy the very special opportunity to travel to São Miguel, the biggest of the nine major islands in the Azorean archipelago hidden in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Azores are characterised by lush landscapes, the abundant cow population (which also translates directly to great cheese assortment), and most uniquely, the subsurface thermal activity. A whole article could be written about the amazing lifestyle one can experience in the Azores; from the thermal baths to the amazing hikes through unbelievable nature!

However, CommUnity's focus is sustainable energy. Therefore, we are excited to present this segment on Geothermal Energy in collaboration with Maria da Graça Rangel, head of Geothermal Resource Explorations at Eletricidade dos Açores (EDA), the electric utility servicing the islands.

© Jonathan Graesser

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THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE As part of our studies in the EIT InnoEnergy program at IST, we were lucky enough to tour São Miguel Island, and visit the Pico Vermelho Geothermal Plant. Did you enjoy the visit from the students?

If it was an enjoyable experience for you, do you see the opportunity to continue inviting the students, or even providing opportunities for internships in the future?

Yes, we did. EDA RENOVÁVEIS is happy to receive schools and contact with their students. It’s always an opportunity to transmit some information about geothermal energy and how we use this endogenous resource to produce electricity.

We are always open to receive the school community that is interested in visiting the project.

Not too often we receive students for short-term internships which are associated with regional government programs.

“It is precisely by living in the Azores that we are eager to pursue the aim of geothermal energy which provides such important benefits to our region” - Rangel © Jonathan Graesser

When I visited the plants, I was quite distracted by the scenery around me... how do you manage to stay focused living in such a beautiful place?!

• Economic, translated into savings in fuel imports and strengthening of the Azorean economy;

It is precisely by living in the Azores that we are eager to pursue the aim of geothermal energy, which provides such important benefits to our region:

• Strategic, increasing the diversification of energetic sources and self-sufficiency; • Environmental, reducing the emission of air pollutants and the burning of fossil fuel.

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OPINION | *TITLE*

Title (this space can be used for 2nd title too) Author

B

Š Jonathan Graesser

ody Text (leave two squares of spacing between this column and the next; increasing the space between the first letter and the rest to 80 will be necessary; change the colour of the first letter according to the title’s colour).

*NR* 45

RD 3RD EDITION | 2020 2019

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE I am no expert on geothermal energy, but I have researched that there are three types: dry steam, flash steam, and binary cycle. Which type is Pico Vermelho?

you have visited - Pico Vermelho, with an installed capacity of 10 MW and Ribeira Grande power plant, with an installed capacity of 13 MW.

All three power plants operated by EDA RENOVÁVEIS are based on the binary technology.

Together, these two geothermal power plants, provide 42% of the electrical power demand of the island. The Azores geothermal project in terms of installed capacity can be considered small at a global scale. However, when considering our contribution at a local/regional scale, it is very significant.

Can you provide a simplified explanation of how the plant operates?

The plant’s working system can be described as follows: 1. The two-phase geothermal fluid from the wells first enters in the separator, which separates the water (liquid phase) from the saturated steam and non-condensable gases; 2. After being isolated, the geothermal steam enters the vaporizer; a small percentage is expelled into the atmosphere together with non-condensable gases through a discharge valve; working fluid itself at the beginning of a new cycle.

3. The transfer of the heat into the working fluid results in the condensation of the geothermal steam which is driven to the entrance of the pre-heater where it joins the water, participating in the heat transfer between the liquid phase and the working fluid; 4. At the highest enthalpy level, the working fluid in the form of steam is driven to the turbine where it expands, turning the turbine which is connected to an alternator; 5. The working fluid is condensed by air cooling, which operates as the cooling source through the air-condensers, after having exchanged heat in the heat exchanger with the working fluid itself at the beginning of a new cycle.

What is the approximate capacity generation from the plant, and what percentage of consumption does it cover for the people in São Miguel? How does this compare to other countries around the world?

EDA RENOVÁVEIS operates two geothermal power plants in São Miguel Island: The power plant

How many more geothermal plants exist in the entire Archipelago, and are there plans to build more?

In addition to the geothermal power plants located at São Miguel, EDA RENOVÁVEIS operates the Pico Alto Geothermal Power Plant, in Terceira Island, which has been producing since the end of 2017, achieving around 11% of that Island’s electrical power demand during 2018. Upcoming projects foreseen the expansion of the existing power plants.

Together these two geothermal power plants provide 42% of the electrical power demand of the island!

Is there, unlike most renewable sources, a consistent and stable output? If not, what are the main effects that limit the output?

Unlike other renewable sources (wind, hydro), the electrical power production from the geothermal source is stable, because its source does not depend on weather conditions or the season of the year. Considering the good productivity of the Ribeira Grande geothermal reservoir and the reliability of the generation equipment, our plants operate 24/7, with very few days per year of scheduled interruptions, for preventive maintenance interventions.

46

INTERVIEW | THE AZORES ARCHIPELAGO: POWERED BY GEOTHERMAL Does it cover the base load for the island? If not, what other sources of energy are utilized?

Geothermal power plants provide stable production output, unaffected by climatic variations, resulting in high capacity factors and making the technology suitable for baseload production. Nowadays, at SĂŁo Miguel Island, the base load diagram is fulfilled by geothermal, hydro and also by Diesel which is necessary to regulate the net frequency.

Please expand on other interesting characteristics of the plant...

We can mention that from an environmental point of view, the Pico Vermelho power plant is well integrated in the surrounding environment.

47

Enclosed by a luxurious landscape, the geothermal power plant is uncontested evidence of the compatibility between energy exploitation and nature preservation This compatibility is shown in the diversity of animal and plant species that inhabits and develops in the surrounding area of Ribeira Grande and Pico Vermelho power plants.

3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE I have seen that the upfront costs of geothermal power plants are often quite high. However, given the remote location of the archipelago, it does seem that it could make economic sense to build geothermal on the Azores. Can you provide a basic explanation of what justifies the initial investment? Has EDA already received a return on investment from the first geothermal power plants built on the island?

The initial cost associated to the development of a geothermal project is quite high, mainly due to the exploration and drilling phases, where there is a need to undertake several specialized studies and surveys; the majority are not available inland.

During the drilling phase there are significant costs associated with personnel, materials, mobilisation/ demobilisation of the drilling rig, also not available inland. Nonetheless, the return of the investment

is relatively quick. For the Ribeira Grande power plant, with more than 20 years of exploitation, the investment is paid and we can also consider the same for the Pico Vermelho power plant (12 years).

From what I understand, there are more and more tourists visiting the islands every year. If this is true, how do you envision that effect to the electricity situation on the island?

A sustainable increase of tourism is important to dynamize the economy of the region. It also contributes to increase the electric energy demand on the islands.

Š Jonathan Graesser

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TECHNICAL | CHARGING EVS

Charging EVs: Reducing Passenger Transport Emissions in Portugal Rudolph Santarromana CMU PhD Student, MSc SELECT Alumnus

I

n the existing body of work on Electric Vehicle (EV) charging, the indirect (or upstream) emissions caused to generate the car’s electricity is often overlooked.

Since EVs cause zero tailpipe emissions, that seems to be the end of the story. In an evolving economy, the entire lifecycle of emissions should not be readily excluded from the scope as consumption decisions can have compound effects, thus, I sought to explore a few questions that looked at consumer choice with EV charging in some original research, specifically, these questions were:

Š Fahrul Azmi

What if... a pricing mechanism can provide additional emission reductions at no cost?

Would it be worthwhile?

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3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Passenger cars account for most road transportation emissions, and over 44% of overall transport sector emissions in the EU; it is the single largest sub-sector contributor among those in transport. Acquiring EVs over conventional vehicles (ICEV) contributes to a 56% reduction of overall (well-to-wheel) emissions on a per kilometre traveled basis, based on new vehicle registrations in the EU in 2017, with studies suggesting the average reduction can be as high as 65% [1]. The carbon intensity (CI) of the electricity used to charge EVs will affect this reduction, and

end-user behavior can have a further impact on decarbonization. Using Portuguese public charging data from 2017, a theoretical dynamic pricing mechanism dependent only on the hourly evolution of the carbon intensity of the electricity grid shows that an additional 17 tonnes of CO2 could have been abated that year in Portugal. The carbon intensity of the Portuguese electricity grid is seen in Figure 1.

Using a similar concept to that used by UberTM in their ‘surge price’ mechanism, which increases

Firgure 1: Daily Portuguese grid intensity superimposed on the same 24-hour graph (metadata from ENTSO-E, 2017). Each faded line in the background represents one day. The black line shows the arithmetic mean of the values at that hour.

users face a surcharge that is directly proportional to the increased amount of emissions their charge will cause prices when the supply is low in order to reduce demand on the system (leveraging the microeconomic laws of supply and demand), a model for EV charging that couples the price for EV charging with the CI of the electricity was

developed. In essence, users face a surcharge that is directly proportional to the increased amount of emissions their charge will cause (from the generation of the electricity) compared to the average value of 2017. If users are very affected by the surcharge (the demand is very ‘elastic’), chances are that drivers will decide not to charge at that time, possibly because their need is not urgent. If users are not affected by the surcharge (the demand is very ‘inelastic’), the drivers will decide to still charge, and pay the surcharge, resulting in greater revenues for the charging station operators.

50

TECHNICAL | CHARGING EVS

Figure 2: Evolution of average day carbon intensity of electricity (blue, left axis) and the resulting surcharge evolution (green, right axis).

Taking the ‘average day’ carbon intensity from the previous figure and implementing this theoretical model for price evolution, Figure 2 shows the carbon intensity in blue with the resulting surcharge in green in a typical 24-hour period. Between the black dotted lines, the carbon intensity falls below the chosen baseline of the gross average value for the year (the blue dotted line), and thus the surcharge falls to zero. This multiplier is applied to the flat-tariff price (average wholesale electricity price in 2017) in this model.

The nascent stage of EVs means that the price elasticity of demand (PED) for electricity to charge EVs is still relatively unknown, however one study shows a value of -0.14 for electricity in the household [2]. A review of PED for conventional fuels in passenger transportation from various studies shows a range from -0.12 to -0.69 [3,4].

Using this range, and applying it to the charging demands from the public charging infrastructure in Portugal on a typical day in 2017, Figure 3 was developed, showing how an increase in surcharge

Figure 3: Resulting power demand curves superimposed with two PED values.

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3RD EDITION | 2020

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE has an effect on decreasing the average demand of the market from the baseline value.

Finally, accounting for the carbon emissions of the grid at these times, the emissions throughout an average day under each paradigm (baseline in blue, inelastic demand in gray, and elastic demand in red) are shown in Figure 4 with the grid carbon intensity superimposed for reference.

This shows that there is a pronounced reduction in both emissions and EV charging demands at times when it is the least environmentally considerate to do so: This results in a total abatement of 17.5 t CO2 over the year.

The new passenger vehicle fleet in Portugal acquired in 2017 totals 4,424 EVs and 79,834

ICEVs [5]. Accounting for the average CO2 emissions per kilometre for each vehicle type, the new ICE vehicle fleet would be expected to emit 100,408.8 t CO2/year (1 t = 106 g), compared to 2,224.9 t CO2 released by the EVs on a well-to-wheel basis in 2017. This shows that the decision to use an EV over an ICE vehicle results in the greatest reduction in emissions, while the charging decisions of drivers only have a moderate effect under the current landscape. However, as the EV fleet grows, the effect would become more pronounced, and under the surcharge pricing mechanism proposed, charging station operators would not lose money by implementing a surcharge that reduces the demand of electricity as revenues are recovered by those who chose to pay the higher price.

Figure 4: Resulting emissions reductions under the two PED paradigms.

Could EV charging take the lead?

Business models directly affect the decisions of their customers, and the choice to incorporate societal costs into price is a growing trend among responsible businesses today. Integrating societal costs in EV charging can be done without major investments and can lead to notable carbon

emission reductions without sacrificing the profits of charging station operators. It is more than time to integrate the societal costs of all goods and services into consumer prices. Could EV charging take the lead?

52

THROUGH| *TITLE* THE EYES OF THE COMMUNITY OPINION

Title (this space can be used for 2nd title too) Author

B

ody Text (leave two squares of spacing between this column and the next; increasing the space between the first letter and the rest to 80 will be necessary; change the colour of the first letter according to the title’s colour).

53

RD 3RD EDITION | 2020 2019

THE COMMUNITY POST | MAGAZINE Continue at this level

“How to make an important cool quote”

Going to School © Susmita Bhattacharya Children used to play the whole day, few of them used to go outside the village for study but not all. Gradually the situation has changed. Mainly due to government policy, solar panels were introduced in the village, school was introduced and awareness has come that education is needed. Electricity is solar. Street light in every lane of the village is available as well as in the houses. So now children go to school and they can study in the evening.

54

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2. National Hurricane Center (2016) Hurricane Matthew advisory 22 [Online]. Available at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2016/al14/al142016.fstadv.022.shtml?

3. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (2015), Energy Snapshot: Haiti [online]. Available at https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64121.pdf 4. Ochs, A. (2014) Haiti Sustainable Energy Roadmap: Harnessing Domestic Energy Resources to Build a Reliable, Affordable, and Climate-Compatible Electricity System.

Carbon capture. Can it save our world? (Page 11) 1. Gates, B. (2017) ‘Bill Gates says these are the best energy investments for the future’, World Economic Forum, 13 September [Online]. Available at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/bill-gatessays-these-are-the-biggest-bets-in-energy-investing.

2. IEA (2018) World Energy Outlook 2018 [Online], Paris, IEA. Available at https://www.iea.org/reports/ world-energy-outlook-2018.

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5. Sweet, W. V., Horton, R., Kopp, R. E., LeGrande, A. N. and Romanou, A. (2017) Ch. 12: Sea Level Rise.

Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I. 6. Drax (2019) Carbon dioxide now being captured in first of its kind BECCS pilot [Online]. Available at https://www.drax.com/press_release/world-first-co2-beccs-ccus/. (Accessed 1st April 2019).

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8. Perasso, V. (2018) 'Turning carbon dioxide into rock - forever', BBC, 18 May [Online]. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43789527 (Accessed 2nd November 2018).

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10. IEA (2017b) World Energy Outlook 2017 [Online], Paris, IEA. Available at https://www.iea.org/reports/worldenergy-outlook-2017.

11. International Maritime Organization (2010) LC 32-15 - Report Of The Thirty-Second Consultative Meeting And The Fifth Meeting Of Contracting Parties [Online]. Available at https://docs.google.com/file/ d/0BxLMteFpPQ08dmpyZ3cyRGtZakE/edit?usp=embed_facebook. (Accessed 12th January 2020) 12. Yoon et al (2018) 'Reviews and syntheses: Ocean iron fertilization experiments – past, present, and future looking to a future Korean Iron Fertilization Experiment in the Southern Ocean (KIFES) project', Biogeosciences, vol. 15, no 19, p5847-5889.

13. J. Wolter, Artist, [Art]. Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Germany.

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2. IPCC. (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C: Summary for Policymakers. World Meteorological Organization, 32 pp.

3. Global Water Partnership (2018) Preparing to Adapt: The Untold Story of Water in Climate Change Adaptation Processes [Online]. Available at https://www.gwp.org/globalassets/global/events/cop24/gwp-ndc-report.pdf.

4. White, M. (2018) ‘Watering the Paris Agreement at COP24’, SIWI, 29 November [Online]. Available at https://www.siwi.org/latest/watering-the-paris-agreement-at-cop24/.

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6. Guterres, A. (2018). Statement by the Secretary-General on the IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, UN Secretary-General. [Online]. Available at https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2018-10-08/ statement-secretary-general-ipcc-special-report-global-warming-15-%C2%BAc 7. World Bank (2013) ‘Thirsty Energy: Securing Energy in a Water-Constrained World’, 29 July [Online]. Available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/brief/water-energy-nexus.

8. U.S. Department of Energy (2014) The Water-Energy Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities [Online]. Available at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/07/f17/Water%20Energy%20Nexus%20Full%20Report%20 July%202014.pdf.

9. United Nations. (2018). Water, Food and Energy. UN-Water [Online]. Available at https://www.unwater.org/waterfacts/water-food-and-energy/ 10. United Nations. (2016). United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Available at https://unfccc.int/news/financing-must-triple-to-meet-climate-and-sdg-goals-for-water.

14. Lockwood, E. (2018) ‘Why Water holds the key to sustainable development’, Impakter, 6 August [Online].

Available at https://impakter.com/water-holds-key-sustainable-development/.

15. UN (2018b) Nature-based solutions for water, Paris, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

16. Pardoe, J., et al. (2018) 'Climate change and the water–energy–food nexus: insights from policy and practice in Tanzania', Climate policy, vol.18, no 7, pp. 863-877.

17. IRENA. (2015) Renewable energy in the water, energy & food nexus.

18. Alberta Water Portal (2013) Introduction to green infrastructure and grey infrastructure [Online]. Available at https://albertawater.com/green-vs-grey-infrastructure.

Lisbon European Green Capital 2020 (Page 30) 1. European Commission (2020) 2020 – Lisbon [online]. Available at https://ec.europa.eu/environment/ europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2020-lisbon/ 2. European Commission (2020) Lisbon is the 2020 European Green Capital Award winner! [online]. Available at https://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/lisbon-is-the-2020-european-greencapital-award-winner/ Charging EVs: reducing passenger transport emissions in Portugal (Page 31) 1. Kromer, M. A. and Heywood, J. B. (2007) Electric Powertrains: Opportunities and Challenges in the U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Fleet.

2. E. J. Bloustein (2005) Assessment of Customer Response to Real Time Pricing Task 1: Literature Search.

3. Koroleva, K., Kahlen, M., Ketter, W., Rook, L. and Lanz, F. (2014) TamagoCar: Using a simulation app to explore price elasticity of demand for electricity of electric vehicle users.

4. Hössinger, R., Link, C., Sonntag, A. and Stark, J. (2017) ‘Estimating the price elasticity of fuel demand with stated preferences derived from a situational approach’, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, vol. 103, pp. 154–171 [Online]. DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2017.06.001.

5. EEA. (2017). Monitoring of CO2 emissions from passenger cars – Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 – European Environment Agency [Online]. Available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/co2-carsemission-14 (Accessed 19 June 2018).

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Unveiling a new refuelling station concept (Page 41) 1. European Environment Agency (2019) Greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Europe [Online]. Available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/transport-emissions-of-greenhouse-gases/ transport-emissions-of-greenhouse-gases-11 (Accessed 3rd October 2019).

2. European Comission (2019) What is Horizon 2020? [Online] (Horizon 2020). Available at https://ec.europa.eu/ programmes/horizon2020/en/what-horizon-2020 (Accessed 3rd October 2019).

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