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Renewable Energy and Sustainable Supply Chain Management have been extensively studied over the last decade. However, techniques based on the modelling and simulations have not been applied extensively in the supply chain of renewable energy. The main purpose of this study is to identify the latest System Dynamics contributions and trends related to the supply chain of renewable energy. An overview of works published in several journals and related to the application of the System Dynamics approach in Renewable Energy Supply Chain (RESC) is provided. Only 10 papers focusing on the application of system dynamics in RESC were found and these were classified into three groups of analysis. Although the literature is scarce, this work shows the importance of system modelling considering: (i) improving the understanding of supply chain in renewable energy and (ii) developing modelling and simulation approaches in renewable energy systems. This paper represents a source for elaborating a System Dynamics framework applied on RESC and provides a comprehensive bibliography of papers published in the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important energy base of China, Xinjiang is the key part of the “Silk Road” economic belt development strategy and is in an superior position. This paper analyzes the problems exist in the sustainable energy industry based on the distribution status of sustainable resources of Xinjiang. The evaluation index system of the application level of Renewable Energy Systems (RESs) is discussed using the wind farm as an example. Besides it investigates the advantages and disadvantages of the development process of each node in the “Silk Road” economic belt areas according to the current situation of the resources, economic and social development. Suggestions for the development of each area are proposed in the end. This paper will contribute to the sustainable development of renewable energy industry and economy in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the financial benefit of grants given to research and development projects with the reduction in managerial flexibility they impose, which implies a loss in the value of the project. To quantify this loss of value, real options analysis has been adopted as the most suitable framework to assess and quantify managerial flexibility. This idea is illustrated by the case of a research and development project in renewable energy, specifically Concentrated Solar Power. Our results show that the value added by the grants is less than the nominal incentives received as a result of the loss of flexibility for managers; they cannot apply certain options such as deferral, nor can they abandon the project. Therefore, a break-even grant is proposed that equals the financial incentive with the loss of managerial flexibility. Under this break-even point, the grant should be rejected. This paper will create awareness for both policy makers and private companies regarding a more accurate assessment of grants to research and development funding as well as provide insights to improve grant schemes without increasing the amount of public funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The harmful effects of carbon emissions and carbon dioxide caused by over dependence on oil is a global issue, which is currently being addressed by encouraging renewable energy (RE) resources contribution to the energy mix. Encouraging RE is important in order to solve the unsustainable nature of electricity generation especially in the sub-Saharan African countries. One of the REs that have vast potential especially in sub-Saharan Africa is the solar energy. This paper provides an overview of the solar photovoltaic (PV) developments in selected countries of sub-Saharan Africa – in terms of research, installed capacity, solar radiation level, RE policies and the percentage of solar PV in the future energy mix of these countries. Finally, this paper identified the barriers to RE deployment and proposed scaling-up solar PV as one of the solution in the development of energy mix in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is about the benefits of a plug-in based software architecture, but it is not only intended for programmers. It also stands the fact that monitoring is needed in any renewable energy generation plant and describes a way to fulfill this need. The fast evolution of renewable energy sources during the last decades resulted in the installation of many power systems all over the world, showing a sharp trend towards Distributed Resources (DR). There are many people related to them (because they use, own, operate, maintain or receive services from DR) who may be interested in knowing things about them for several reasons like production, maintenance, investigation, profitability, etc.; that is why data-acquisition systems are widely used in renewable energy source applications. These systems allow to collect and analyze data regarding the renewable energy installation performance as well as meteorological data. The basic idea on this paper is to achieve monitoring of different energy generation plants using a plug-in driven design technique, presenting as a result of an extensible software architecture design. The main difference between this paper and the previous work is that we focus specifically on monitoring as a necessity, proposing a generic and extensible software system, which could be employed to monitor any kind of renewable energy plant and extended to connect to new developed devices by changing small pieces of software. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There are abundant renewable energy sources in Iran such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass. However, Iran is fully dependent on fossil fuels for industrial, residential and transportation sectors. It results in the country to be in top 10 producers of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. GHGs can be controlled by incorporating renewable sources to produce energy. Therefore, renewable energy resources are becoming more attractive to develop sustainable energy development in Iran. However, the transformation from traditional fossil fuel infrastructures to advanced renewable technologies needs many considerations, such as strategic and core planning. In this regard, this paper covers the current state of Iran's energy market focusing on both fossil fuels and renewable energy resources. A general review is offered over the renewable energy production status in Iran and the production potentials. Finally, in conclusion, a comparisons are made over the current state, plans and also potential opportunities of Iran over each sort of energy production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accession of Poland to the European Union led to a number of significant changes in the Polish energy sector through introduction of market mechanisms, creating competitiveness and enforcing improvement of an economic efficiency of the whole industry, including energy production from renewable energy sources. As a support system for renewable electric energy sources Poland implemented a system of Tradable Green Certificates. The mechanisms functioned properly for many years and were the source of a reasonable income for investors. In 2012 there was the first serious crisis in the renewable energy industry: certificate prices began to fall sharply and revenues of producers decreased drastically, calling into question profitability of many projects. Presented paper is an attempt to analyze this situation. The analysis covers the most important factors that led to this situation, taking into account the current legal situation and the current structure of the renewable energy sector in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the electricity market, sudden price jumps occur more frequently than in other markets due to the peculiarity of electricity. Furthermore, the structural spot characteristics of the electricity market determine high price variability. All these characteristics have been accentuated by the dramatic increase of renewable energy supply in Italy starting in 2010. These features suggest the possibility of contagion effects across Italian regional electricity markets, considering contagion such as a sudden and significant increase in cross-market links arising from a shock to a specific market. In this paper we investigate whether such a renewable energy increase has affected the contagion behavior in the Italian electricity spot market taking into account both the difference between interdependence and contagion and the direction of the shock. We find empirical evidence, with significant tests, that no changes have occurred in interdependence mechanism, nor in contagion effects due to renewable energy sources development in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the market dynamics of mergers and acquisitions in the renewable energy and cleantech sectors. We analyzed abnormal returns from 273 announced and 54 completed buyout acquisitions that took place between the years 1997 and 2014, and we used an event study methodology to test (i) whether renewable energy and cleantech deals experienced higher rates of abnormal returns than traditional energy and mining deals, (ii) whether deal completions displayed similar effects as deal announcements, and (iii) whether homogenous deals experienced higher rates of abnormal returns than heterogeneous deals. Our findings were (i) that the traditional energy and mining sector outperformed the renewable energy and cleantech sectors in homogenous deals, (ii) that the deal completion effect followed the announcement effect in 9 of 12 cases, and (iii) that homogenous deals outperformed heterogeneous deals. To the best of our knowledge, comparisons of deal announcements and deal completion effects in the renewable energy and cleantech sectors have not to date been previously examined in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs׳) require a certain fraction of the electricity generated for a given region be produced from renewable resources. California׳s RPS mandates that by 2020, 33% of the electricity sold in the state must be generated from renewables. Such mandates have important implications for the electricity sector as well as for the whole society. In this paper, we estimate the costs and benefits of varying 2020 California RPS targets on electricity prices, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, criteria pollutant emissions, the electricity generation mix, the labor market, renewable investment decisions, and social welfare. We have extended the RPS Calculator model, developed by Energy and Environmental Economics (E3) Inc., to account for distributions of fuel and generation costs, to incorporate demand functions, and to estimate the effects of RPS targets on GHG emissions, criteria pollutant emissions, and employment. The results of our modeling provide the following policy insights: (1) the average 2020 electricity price increases as the RPS target rises, with values ranging between $0.152 and $0.175/kW h (2008 dollars) for the 20% RPS to 50% RPS, respectively; (2) the 33% and 50% RPS targets decrease the GHG emissions by about 17.6 and 35.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO 2 e) relative to the 20% RPS; (3) the GHG emission reduction costs of the RPS options are high ($71–$94 per ton) relative to results from policy options other than RPS or prices that are common in the carbon markets; and (4) a lower target (e.g., a 27% RPS) provides higher social welfare than the 33% RPS (mandate) under low and moderate CO 2 social costs (lower than $35/ton); while a higher RPS target (e.g., 50%) is more beneficial when using high CO 2 social costs or rapid renewable technology diffusion. However, under all studied scenarios, the mandated 33% RPS for California would not provide the best cost/benefit values among the possible targets and would not maximize the net social benefit objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tradable green certificates (TGC) framework is a prevalent policy support scheme enacted to stimulate investments in electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E). In several countries, including Sweden and Norway, the TGC framework is currently under reevaluation. In this process, academic literature plays a crucial role in reflecting the outcomes of this policy framework. The outcomes, however, are often limited by the analysis criteria, which reflect what has been accounted for or disregarded when assessing the performance of the TGC framework. The analysis criteria also stress what is considered as a successful outcome. Given the importance of such criteria, this paper presents an extensive and systemic literature review of academic publications assessing the performance of the TGC framework. The findings are to provide an overview of the publications’ analysis criteria and outline their outcomes. We also provide descriptive statistics for the publications and examine the average citation record of the publications that use various analysis criteria in order to explore their relative impact on later studies. These findings can help policymakers put the assessments into perspective when reevaluating a country׳s TGC system. They also suggest several intriguing directions for future studies in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China applies no efforts to promote the development of renewable energy (REE) so as to enhance China׳s energy security and address climate change. National top-down support scheme and the local renewable energy industry (REEI) development are the two important and intervened countermeasures for promoting REEI development in China. Considering China׳s vast regional disparity, the review on the spatial distribution of REEI in provincial level is critical and enlightening for future appropriate policy-making, while to date, there has been few related studies. With this circumstance, this paper made an empirical study on the distribution and cluster pattern of China׳s REEI based on the analysis on the industrial output value, the number and location of key companies/industrial bases, through on-site survey and updating statistical data. Results highlighted that in general, four REEI clusters were formed, included Bohai sea region, Yangtze River Delta, middle area, and western area. Supply chains were diversely distributed based on the regional resources allocation as well as economy development level and. In summary, REE resource supply and transformation facilities construction were the main REEI in western China, while R&D and high-tech equipment manufacture were clustered in eastern coastal regions. Based on the empirical study and Analytic Network Process (ANP) of the roles of stakeholders involved REEI of China, we further proposed various strategic measures and policy implications to better balance the REEI development in China. Our findings were critical for China׳s authority to design appropriate policies and take effective measures for promoting the harmonious development of REEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing is the capital of China, serving as the center of China’s politics, culture and education. The exploitation and utilization of renewable energy has become an important developmental carrier for Beijing, which is also a key channel for optimizing energy consumption structure, building a high-efficiency and low-carbon energy system, relieving the environmental pressure and ensuring the energy secure of Beijing. In this paper, Beijing’s renewable energy industry was analyzed. First, Beijing’s renewable energy resources, which include biomass energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy and hydro energy, were introduced from two aspects of energy resource distribution and energy resource utilization. Second, the development status of Beijing’s renewable energy industry (including biomass, solar and wind energy industry) was expounded. Then, the obstacles of Beijing’s renewable energy industry were analyzed. Finally, some proposals for the healthy development of Beijing’s renewable energy industry were put forward, which will contribute to build a clean, safe, efficient and low-carbon energy system for Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses the potential of renewable energy, investment and CO2 mitigation by renewable energy technologies. Currently, India's per-capita emissions are around one tonne of CO2/year. The present energy scene offers India a window of opportunity to invest in renewable energy. The annual turnover of renewable energy industry has reached $12.3 billion in 2011, which is 36% higher than 2010 investment of $7.5 billion. Increasing the share of renewable energy in overall energy mix is an effective option to mitigate CO2 emission. Presently, the share of renewable energy is around 12% in the energy mix. The present study estimated CO2 mitigation potential of Indian renewable energy sector about 203milliontonnes with an installed capacity of 24GW in 2012. However, enormous potential identified in renewable energy sector with favorable CO2 mitigation the government is compromising with limited financial resources. However, policy efforts need to be strengthened to encourage a massive scale-up of renewable technologies to build sustained low carbon economy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The past 20 years have brought significant changes in the evolution of the energy sector in Romania. Even if it is considered a country with high potential for renewable energies, these are not fully exploited. European Union accession has determined significant changes in energy policy, energy legislation alignment and promotion of renewable energy. In this context, the paper aims to offer a comprehensive overview of the renewable energy sector in Romania. Based on an extensive research of Romanian energy policy and legislation, the article presents the Romanian energy sector and the current status of the main renewable energy sources. The information was gathered from the available data in statistical reports, energy and environment strategies, energy companies' reports, NGO studies and research articles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Kyoto protocol was the first agreement regarding control of climate change problems. Clean development mechanism (CDM) was included in the Kyoto protocol to promote sustainable development in developing countries (non-Annex I countries) and assist developed countries (Annex I countries) to achieve their emission reduction targets. CDM allows trading of emissions reductions and helps to increase sustainable development in a developing country and reduce global emissions in developed country. Renewable energy sources are the appropriate alternatives for sustainable development through CDM. India is one of the emerging nations in renewable energy sector. Government of India is trying to enhance energy generation through renewable and carbon trading. This paper shows the current status and progress of renewable energy through CDM in India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]