Transnational-Renewables Transnational-Renewables

Global Renewable Energy Potential

- Approaches to its Use -

held in Magdeburg, Germany on September 2001

	In my talk I would like to introduce you to the worldwide potentials of renewable electricity production. The techniques we will discuss are electricity production via photovoltaics, solar thermal power plants, hydropower, biomass, hot dry rock geothermal power plants, energy towers and finally we will focus on wind energy. For each of these options of power generation I am going to point out the characteristics with regard to their specific temporal behaviour and the costs to be expected. We will see that the temporal behaviour significantly changes with the size and the selection of the catchment area used for the power generation. We will also touch on the topics of backup and storage needs and the subject of grid capacities. After this I consider wind energy as major source of power production. And last but not least we will reflect on a possible combination of climate protection and development aid.
	Let‘s start with photovoltaic electricity production.
	Here you can see the potential production of PV panels mounted in such a way that the orientation of the surface is parallel to the latitude and has a fixed slope equivalent to the latitude towards the sun. The output is calculated from data of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and additional data from the National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). (The panels are considered to have an efficiency of 14 % at peak radiation and standard temperature reduced to approx. 13 % efficiency due to system losses.) The best conditions are found in arid zones of high mountainous regions. Here the potential production is more than twice as high as we can expect in middle European countries. In Poland the production of a photovoltaic system will lie in the range of 130 kWh / (m² a) or approx. 900 Full Load Hours (FLH).