Renewable energy from europe to africa

He has extensive fieldwork experience of projects and practices in developing countries, most recently via his involvement with the work of EU’s Technical Assistance Facility in Eastern

RENEWABLE ENERGY

From Europe to Africa David Elliott and Terence Cook

David Elliott • Terence Cook Renewable Energy

From Europe to Africa

ISBN 978-3-319-74786-6 ISBN 978-3-319-74787-3 (eBook)

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Open University

Milton Keynes, UK Open UniversityMilton Keynes, UK

Over the last ten years or so, there has been a concerted effort to support the use of renewable energy in less developed countries The long-term aim has been to reduce emissions from the use of fossil fuels, but shorter- term aims include providing energy sources for the many who are cur-rently off the power grid Thus, the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable

Development Goals include providing ‘affordable, reliable, sustainable

and modern energy for all’, with projects being supported across the

devel-oping world under the Sustainable Energy for All programme.

It has not always been easy Most of the countries targeted are relatively poor and there can be mismatches in expectations and conflicts with other development goals, with energy issues and renewables, in particular, not necessarily being high on local /national agendas

This book gives an account of some of the problems encountered—for example, looking at how hard it is to make interventions in countries where there is no experience with renewables There are potential conflicts between what they want (e.g economic growth and jobs) and what agen-cies want to see (e.g green power capacity), what is needed (low-carbon energy) and what is available (dirty fossil fuel) Our main focus in this book is on Africa, but these problems are not unique to the developing world We also look at experiences with similar programmes in Central and Eastern Europe, some of them initiated by the European Union (EU) as part of the EU enlargement process, and some extending into relatively undeveloped countries near the EU. In the case of the EU expansion, part

of the aim was to ensure that the candidate countries complied with EU directives on Renewable Energy In the case of the UN- and EU-supported

Preface

work in Africa described in this book, there was also pressure to reform policies, as a condition for receiving aid and technical assistance from the

EU. In both cases, that sometimes led to conflicts

Moreover, in both cases, in addition to varying local deployment issues,

policies, and conflicts, there were also sometimes conflicts within and

amongst the support agencies, as well as a potential for bureaucratic

inef-ficiency Certainly, with large aid budgets being involved, there are issue of programme effectiveness and accountability The likelihood that donor countries will have their own commercial interests and may seek to build markets for equipment and services that they can supply also raises a range

of political and economic issues: who are these programmes really for? What are the costs and risks of technology transfer? Can local technology and skill bases be created?

It is now apparent that the development of renewables will progress apace around the world In many cases, it is the newly industrialising countries that are taking the lead, following China’s example, with China also keen to promote its influence and technology in the developing world With the West no longer necessarily in the forefront, new models of global development may now be needed This book explores the implications and looks at how the development process may and should change It draws on fieldwork carried out by Terence Cook in Central and Eastern Europe as part of an Open University (OU) project led by David Elliott,

and then, in Africa, funded by the EU under the UN Sustainable Energy

for All programme That programme remains a cornerstone in

develop-ment efforts in the energy field, but as this book explains, revisions, native and additional approaches may be necessary, and indeed, seem to be emerging

alter-In a hopefully not-too-presumptuous approach, to provide a nient framework, in the case study parts of this book, we make use of our

conve-OU teamwork, reporting on its phases and development chronologically,

so as to structure our exploration of the issues and cue in the case studies from each region While we are indebted to the various EU sources of funding for this work, our account of it is an independent one

Fig 1.1 Renewables 2016—Global Status report, Renewable Energy

Policy Network for the 21st century, open access

Fig 1.2 OU EERU/NENE reproduction of a generic map 2006Fig 2.1 ©OECD/IEA 2011 World Energy Outlook, IEA publishing

Licence: www.iea.org/t&c

Fig 3.1 ‘Africa’s Renewable Future: the Path to Sustainable Growth’,

International Renewable Energy Agency, 2013, open accessFig 3.2 Clean Energy Ministerial Global Lighting and Energy Access

Partnership (Global LEAP) Infographic, April 2015, open accessFig 3.3 Avila et al (2017) Oxfam America, reproduced with permissionFig 3.4 Dandora landfill site and Fig. 3.5 Kenyan engineers: Terence

Cook

Fig 4.1 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: CDM

insights portal (monthly project data), UNFCCC, Bonn, open access

Fig 4.2 Wu et al (2017), Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences Online, copyrighted ©2017 by the National Academy

of Sciences of the United States of America Chart Credit: Berkley Lab, reproduced with permission

acknowledgements

contents

author BiograPhies

David  Elliott is a professor based at the Open University (OU),

UK. Elliott’s expertise is in renewable energy policy, on which he has ten extensively He has worked on a range of projects, including an OU-led New Europe-New Energy programme (2003–2011), together with co- author Terence Cook

writ-Terence Cook is a research fellow at the Open University, UK. Cook has

worked on a series of European Union (EU)–supported projects focused

on sustainable energy in Africa He has extensive fieldwork experience of projects and practices in developing countries, most recently via his involvement with the work of EU’s Technical Assistance Facility in Eastern

and Southern Africa, in support of the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy

for All programme.

CSP Concentrated Solar (thermal) Power

EfW Energy from Waste

PV Photo-voltaic solar

aBBreviations

suPPort schemes/Programmes/agencies

CDM Clean Development Mechanism

FiT Feed-In Tariff

IEA International Energy Agency

IRENA International Renewable Energy Agency

NGO Non-Government Organisation

REEEP Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency ProgrammeSE4All Sustainable Energy for All

list of figures

Fig 2.1 EU enlargement—accession candidate countries, 2004/7

Fig 3.1 The current grid system (Source: IRENA (2013)) 41 Fig 3.2 On- and off-grid options (Global Leap (2015)) 42 Fig 3.3 Sub-Sahara renewable energy resource estimates

Table 2.1 EU accession country renewables share of final electricity

consumption in 1999, electricity targets for 2010, and energy

Table 2.2 Central and Eastern EU Renewable Potentials MW(e) by 2020 20

Table 2.3 Central & Eastern Europe: Renewable 2020 Potentials

Table 2.4 European countries, percentage of renewables in gross final

list of Boxes

Box 2.2 Renewables in Russia—Not Much Interest 27

Box 3.4 African Development Bank Green Mini-Grids Programme 64

Box 4.6 Off-grid and Mini-grid Market Expansion 101 Box 4.7 Employment Creation as a Sustainable Development Metric 104

Box 4.9 The German ‘Marshall Plan’ for Africa—Trade Not Aid? 109

© The Author(s) 2018

D Elliott, T Cook, Renewable Energy,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74787-3_1

Introduction: Energy Changes

Abstract Emissions from fossil fuel combustion have major local and

global environmental, social, and economic impacts Progress in reducing emissions has been made by some industrial countries, with, for example, renewable energy systems being widely adopted, and as the economies of the less developed regions of the world begin to expand, they too will have

to make changes in energy production and use This introductory chapter outlines the key energy policy issues and the options for action, with renewables being seen as central, and with the focus of the book being on related development programmes in Africa, for example, under the UN

Sustainable Energy for All programme, but also on work on renewables by

and in the European Union in the case of Eastern and Central Europe

Keywords Climate change • Renewable energy • Development aid

• Sustainable energy for all

1.1 Mitigating CliMate Change

Climate change is a global issue Whoever produces greenhouse gases such

as carbon dioxide, and wherever these emissions occur, they eventually spread in the upper atmosphere, and by interacting with incident solar energy, play a role in changing the climate everywhere Local effects, how-ever, will differ, depending on topography and geography, and the impact

of these effects will also differ, depending on the local social and economic

situation Some of the largest impacts may fall on those countries least equipped to deal with them—for example, poor countries in the global south, where weather-related stresses (e.g due to flooding, high tempera-tures, and droughts) are already a problem A 4° or 5 °C average tempera-ture rise could make parts of the equatorial belt almost uninhabitable in summer, while the associated sea level rise and storms could inundate many key coastal cities and food growing areas (IPCC 2017).

In the short term, the only option available to most poor countries is to adapt as best they can to the changes—for example, by better emergency planning and building more flood defences This will not solve the prob-lem, which will continue to get worse unless more radical solutions are adopted worldwide The destruction of forests, which act as carbon sinks, makes the problem worse, as do some farming methods, but the core prob-lem is the combustion of fossil fuels in power stations, homes, by industry, and also in vehicles, including ships and aircraft Around 80% of the energy used at present globally comes from the combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas That underpins much of the global economy Reforestation would help by creating a renewed carbon sink, but it would not allow us to continue to burn off the remaining fossil resources on any significant scale The production and release of carbon dioxide gas has to stop, and soon.The implication is that we must switch, globally, to using non-fossil energy sources for energy production Using energy more efficiently will also help, so that less energy has to be produced, but however much we avoid energy waste, we will still need energy sources, and the only non- fossil options we have at present are nuclear and the various renewable sources

Nuclear power has a range of significant economic, safety, and rity problems, making it arguably not well suited to wide-scale expan-sion, whereas renewables are generally much more benign Although they do have their own problems, the situation at present is that while the global nuclear contribution seems fairly static at around 11% of global electricity, renewables are expanding rapidly, already supplying over 24% of global electricity, with costs continuing to fall Projections are that they could be supplying up to 50% of electricity in many coun-tries by 2030 (some have already reached that) and much more globally

secu-by 2050, given proper support Indeed, in some countries, near 100% may be possible by then, with renewables also making major contribu-tions to heat supply and transport (Elliott 2015) Some even say that

most countries can get near 100% of their total energy from renewables

by 2050, given the political will (Jacobson et al 2017)

That will all require urgent action, something that is also clear from the even more pressing issue of poor air quality, as is now apparent in cities in many rapidly industrialising countries Dealing with that major health problem will help deal with climate change too.

The technical agenda is thus fairly clear, and only controversial amongst those who are in denial about climate change and/or its causes, or who believe that we can clean up, or compensate for, continued fossil fuel use

in some way It may be possible to capture carbon dioxide gas emissions from power plants and store them underground, but this is expensive, and

as yet unproven at scale Even if developed fully, it would not allow us to continue with large-scale use of fossil fuels There would not be room to store all the gas indefinitely and securely An alternative, somewhat desper-ate, ‘geoengineering’ approach is to allow combustion, but reduce inci-dent solar energy, to compensate for the warming that would result, by blocking out sunlight, for example, by pumping aerosol particles into the upper atmosphere or even by installing huge sunshades in geostationary

orbit It would seem to make more sense to use the solar energy and stop

using fossil fuels

1.2 global energy PrioritiesThe already industrialised countries have benefitted from the use of fossil fuels for a hundred years or more, so it is sometimes argued that dealing with climate change is their responsibility Certainly, they have the wealth

to start the process But emissions from the newly industrialising countries are rising fast and others may want to copy their economic growth pat-terns So, it is a global problem The Western countries have embarked on carbon dioxide emission mitigation programmes with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with some already having achieved quite high percentages of renewable power contribution—for example, 34% in Germany, 43% in Denmark, and around 50% in Sweden They intend to continue

However, it is also sometimes argued that investment in renewable energy projects is more cost effective in carbon-saving terms in countries which are further back in the process, so that big percentage gains can be made That, along with wider humanitarian and political concerns, has led to some aid-orientated projects linked to wider development pro-grammes in poor countries, support for the deployment of new energy systems being seen as part of the development process Western coun-tries’ interest in such initiatives has also been stimulated by the potential

for creating new markets for their technology For example, Shell and BP were, at one time, quite heavily committed to offering their PV (photo-voltaic) solar systems for use in Africa That interest waned as markets tightened and other more conventional markets looked more attractive

to them, but developing countries remain a potential target for offerings from the West, and increasingly from the industrialised East, with the offerings not just being limited to solar; vendors of nuclear technology are also much in evidence

As global concerns about climate change have grown, international agencies have developed policies and programmes to support the diffusion

of non-fossil technologies, with renewables usually seen as the most

rele-vant, as in the UN Sustainable Energy for All programme (SE4All 2017) The assumption is that renewables will be rolled out globally, with a dou-bling of global renewable capacity and energy use efficiency by 2030, but that less developed countries needed extra support This book looks at how that has played out in practice so far and at some of the policy impli-cations, focusing on experiences with the European Union (EU)–sup-ported programme in Africa There are certainly many issues to resolve For example, the relative roles of small local off-grid projects and large- scale grid-linked projects, the relationship between grant aid and open markets, and the choice and design of financial support systems

Experiences with the development of renewables in Europe has shaped views on some of these questions, although that may not actually be help-ful—the situation elsewhere is often very different However, there are some overlaps, especially in the case of some of the new EU member states, so it still useful to look at how, in the early phase of the EU enlarge-ment exercise, renewables fared there, as these countries sought to syn-chronise their policies with the wider EU programmes, helped by the

EU.  This book therefore starts off by looking at the development of renewable energy policy and practices in the new EU states in the early days of the EU enlargement programme, after they had separated from the old Soviet Bloc It also takes a brief look at what has happened since in Russia and the other ex-Soviet Bloc states

While the EU was initially in the lead in terms of capacity and the USA had a major role in technology development, subsequently, the global pic-ture has moved on, with China taking a lead in renewable capacity deploy-ment, and expansion in the East generally outpacing that in the West South America is also beginning to play a major role and the longer-term development pattern may see Africa also play a key role, though that may depend on, amongst other things, how the current support programmes

play out, given that some African countries are much less developed than others Aid and special support can certainly help But it also has problems (with potential risks of corruption and dependency), and although, as the countries develop and the technologies mature, aid may be less needed, for the moment, it remains essential in most places.

1.3 beyond aid and Mega ProjeCts

Currently, corporate and state investment in renewables is growing, with developing countries taking on more of a lead (see Fig. 1.1) Nevertheless, much of the progress that is being made in them still relies on foreign aid, and, as within the industrial countries, renewables have been promoted via subsidies These subsidies can lead to attacks by those committed to free markets, heightened by claims that much of the funding is inappropriate

or wasted

However, renewable energy technology is developing rapidly, and in some contexts, it is now competitive with conventional sources unaided There is still some way to go in some cases, but already, in many cases, far from representing a major cost and economic drain, a shift to using

renewables, along with energy saving, looks like a wise investment in commercial terms Moreover, given the social and economic cost of air pollution and climate change, a shift to renewables is even more attractive The growth of employment in the renewables sector is also an attraction—nearly 10 million people are already working in the area globally.

There will, of course, be those who want to cling on to the old energy sources, to extract the last possible economic gains they can get from them, with those with vested interests in the technological status quo resisting change Change is usually painful and much is often made of the real or imagined dislocations and impacts resulting from change Renewables cer-tainly can have local environmental and social impacts, although in most cases, they are small and can be minimised, with potentially negative reac-tions avoided by sensitive local consultation and participation That has been one of the lessons from renewable deployment in the West

That may not be the case for all renewable technologies, especially for large capital-intensive hydro projects of the type sometimes proposed for developing countries They may involve large external funding sources, major local impacts, and little local participation or benefit By contrast, smaller-scale, low-impact renewable projects—for example, using solar or wind energy—can be locally owned and controlled and are much less likely to be opposed Indeed, they are likely to be welcomed and pro-moted locally That too is a lesson learnt from the West About 40% of Germany’s renewables capacity is owned by local individuals or commu-nity groups, as are many of the wind farms in Denmark

The case studies presented in this book provide some examples of this sort of approach, which ties in well with some current ‘bottom-up’ grass roots-orientated approaches to development aid In the longer term, that might lead to local community-based cooperative management of proj-ects and local economic development and technological capacity—very different from large-scale ‘top-down’ aid-based or corporately funded megaprojects

The final parts of the book look at the wider, longer-term ments and at likely ways ahead as renewables spread across the world The

develop-potential is certainly there for economically, environmentally, and socially

sustainable energy systems to be developed This book looks at some early and current attempts to achieve this, starting with an account of how renewable energy projects were promoted in Central and Eastern Europe

as part of the EU enlargement programme, before moving on to look at the situation in Africa

While the EU enlargement process included some relatively well- developed economies, it also brought in some areas that were less devel-oped, as did the wider process of exploring options for possible subsequent additional attachments in the Balkan area and beyond For example, as is reported below, the Open University’s New Europe-New Energy project was also involved with projects in Croatia (now in the EU) and Kosovo, and also in Albania.

Although some are poor, the situation in all these European countries

is very different from that in Africa, the focus of the subsequent EU-funded work looked at below, but some hopefully interesting and useful compari-sons can be made, as we try to do in the conclusions to this book An obvious point is that the political relationship to the EU is very different for these two areas In Africa, the EU is just one of many possible sources

Clearly, there can be technical, social, economic, and political problems with implementation of any change, for example, in terms of potential conflicts between private and public sector motivations and interest (Sovacool et al 2015) This book certainly provides some examples In the case of Africa, they follow on from what has been a historical pattern—the often rapacious commercial exploitation of its mineral resources—most recently, oil and gas

However, what hopefully emerges from this study are some lessons about how change, at least in energy systems, can be supported in produc-tive ways and have a positive impact in developing countries That clearly has more than just technological implications, as our final chapter dis-cusses—looking to the future, including for other developing countries, not just Africa What is needed, and what seems to be emerging, is a new approach in which technological change is seen as part of a process of social change (Ockwell and Byrne 2017)

Change is urgent, but there is still a long way to go in many parts of the world Development aid programmes are one source of help for change, although, as we shall see, they are not without faults, failures, contradic-tions, and conflicts Aid will still be needed into the future, but as the global economy changes and energy systems change, development policies and practice will also have to change, and the examples looked at in the book provide insights into what works and also what does not.

referenCes

Elliott, D (2015) Green Energy Futures Basingstoke: Palgrave Pivot.

IPCC (2017) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Geneva https://

www.ipcc.ch/

Jacobson, M., et  al (2017) 100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World

Joule 1(1), 108–121 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S2542435117300120

Ockwell, D., & Byrne, R (2017) Sustainable Energy for All: Innovation, Technology

and Pro-Poor Green Transformations London: Routledge.

REN21 (2016) Renewables 2016 Global Status Report REN 21 http://www.

ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GSR_2016_KeyFindings1.pdf

SE4All (2017) Sustainable Energy for All United Nations Programme http://

www.se4all.org/

Sovacool, B., Linnér, B., & Goodsite, M (2015, July) The Political Economy of

Climate Adaptation Nature Climate Change, 5 http://www.nature.com/ nclimate/journal/v5/n7/full/nclimate2665.html?foxtrotcallback=true

© The Author(s) 2018

D Elliott, T Cook, Renewable Energy,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74787-3_2

Spreading Renewables: The EU and Beyond

Abstract The European Union (EU) has developed ambitious policies on

renewable energy and other climate change responses The enlargement of the EU in the 2000s meant that a range of Central and Eastern European countries had to accommodate to these policies This chapter looks at the renewable energy policy aspects of the enlargement process and how the new member states developed their renewable resources, aided by the

EU. Although there were problems, some of the new EU countries did very well—indeed, often as well or better than some countries in the exist-ing EU. The chapter then looks at examples of the situation in countries bordering the EU, where, in many cases, although the potential is very large, progress has not so far been so spectacular

Keywords European Union • Enlargement • The Baltic states

• The Balkan states • Russia

2.1 EU EnlargEmEnt

In 2004, 10 new countries joined the European Union (EU; Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), and in 2007, two more were added (Bulgaria and Romania) See Fig. 2.1 Many of the ex-Eastern Bloc states who became members of the EU were heavily reliant on nuclear power as well as fossil fuels At the same time, many of them were keen to develop their renewable

energy potentials, as were the other new EU entrants Indeed, with concerns about climate change in mind, that was a requirement of their accession to the EU, with quite ambitious targets being agreed for the percentage of electricity to be supplied from renewable sources by 2010—in some cases, much more than the target of 21% average for the expanded EU as a whole by then For example, Slovakia was expected to

Fig 2.1 EU enlargement—accession candidate countries, 2004/7 (OU EERU/

NENE 2006)

reach 31%, Romania 33%, Slovenia 33.6%, and Latvia 49.3% (see Table 2.1) In part, this was because some of these new EU countries already made use of their large hydro and biomass resources, plus the potential for rapid expansion In addition, most of the new entrants also had substantial wind resources, which they were beginning to exploit For example, by the end of 2005, Poland had 73 MW (megawatts) of wind generation capacity in place, Latvia 27, Estonia 30, the Czech Republic

26, and Hungary 17 MW. Interestingly, at that time, waiting in the wings for EU entry, Turkey had 20 MW (EWEA 2005)

The simple message from these statistics is that the new EU countries looked set to see a rapid expansion of renewable energy For example, Estonia was attempting to expand its renewable energy resources very rap-idly, by a factor of 5 by 2010 However, this sort of growth would not be automatic Part of the motivation for going for renewables was that this could attract funding from EU and other sources, which could help renew local economies and support employment Getting access to this funding was not always easy While there was interest in the EU Emission Trading

Table 2.1 EU accession country renewables share of final electricity consumption

in 1999, electricity targets for 2010, and energy consumption in 2005 and 2020

System (EU-ETS) and the Kyoto ‘Joint Implementation’ system, winning accreditation for projects within these systems had relatively high transac-tion costs In addition, few of the new EU countries had direct access to the necessary technology and expertise That often had to be bought in from aboard, adding to the cost.

This chapter looks at the plans for and experience of expansion of the use of renewable energy sources in the new EU and beyond, based in part

on outreach work by researchers from the UK Open University (OU) since

2000, as part of a ‘New Europe-New Energy’ programme That had led to

a series of seminars and conferences in Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Romania, followed by a major UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)-funded inter-national conference at the OU in September 2006, and a major seminar in Zagreb in 2008 An overview was provided by a New Europe-New Energy session at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Glasgow, also in 2008 Subsequently, the focus was widened to include a review of options in Kosovo and Croatia, and in 2009, a review of Albania’s wind energy pro-gramme was carried out in an EU-backed project

Some general points emerged from this wide-ranging work One cerned the debate over which type of support system to use, and in par-ticular, the relative merits of Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) and quota/trading schemes FiTs had proved to be very successful in Germany and elsewhere

con-in the existcon-ing EU, leadcon-ing to significant capacity becon-ing con-installed at tively low cost, compared to the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation, and then, Renewables Obligation systems used in the UK FiTs were seen as the way ahead for the new EU countries Another general point was that, as noted above, while most of the running had initially been made by Western Europe, it looked likely that some of the new EU countries might do bet-ter in the longer term There was a large potential for wind, including some offshore in the shallow western areas of the Black Sea, and the potential for biomass in Central and Eastern Europe was also vast But equally, some of the existing EU countries might hope to be able to ben-efit by providing the necessary expertise and equipment If exploitation could be avoided, this seemed to be an important area for EU-wide coop-eration for mutual environmental and economic gain

rela-A third general point concerned the starting point in some of the new

EU countries Most of the Eastern Bloc countries had large old Russian- built nuclear power plants, some of them of the same design as Chernobyl

In such cases, one of the conditions of EU accession was that these plants

be phased out, on safety grounds The EU provided help with this in the form of grants and technical advice, and also some support for creating alternative employment That was seen as one of the key elements of the renewables programme.

The OU New Europe New Energy team was, in part, funded to help with this type of work—for example, in Lithuania, where the Ignalina nuclear plant was scheduled to close Alternative employment options were to be investigated This de- nuclearisation policy clearly linked in with environmental concerns that were emerging in the EU, including in new

EU countries such as Lithuania, where opposition to nuclear power had been strong, and indeed, had been part of the opposition to Russian con-trol For progressives in these countries, ‘New Energy’ meant just that—not more of the old energy—and in the initial phase at least, the progressives were in control or influential (Cook and Elliott 2004)

2.2 thE Starting SitUation and thE BaltiC arEa

EnErgy optionSThe energy policy situation that faced the new EU candidate states was defined by the renewable energy targets for the 10 countries that joined in

2004, as set by the EU Directive on Renewable energy for 2010, and by targets later set for the two new member states who joined in 2007—Bulgaria and Romania See Table 2.1

As can be seen, Latvia, with its large hydro input, started with a major lead; Slovenia, similarly, also had a major advantage over the other new

EU members; while Slovakia was seen as catching up rapidly; and Romania was expected to get a major contribution from renewables Targets for

2020 were subsequently set for all energy, not just electricity, in a new

2009 Renewables Directive They are also shown in Table 2.1 As can be seen, Latvia again leads For comparison, the UK was at 1.3% in 2005, with a 15% 2020 energy target set

The OU New Europe New Energy team’s first main focus was on the Baltic states: Box 2.1 provides an overview of the starting point energy situation in each of the three countries The OU team focused mainly on Lithuania, since, as noted earlier, funding was available for work in alterna-tive projects in relation to the closure of Ignalina nuclear plant, via the UK government programme ‘Social and Economic Consequences of Nuclear Power Plant Closure in the Former Soviet Union’

Box 2.1 Energy in the Baltic States

Lithuania has a reasonable wind energy potential, estimated to be of

the order of 500 MW, according to a study by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development Several wind projects were underway There were also some good sites for further micro- and mini-hydro projects, possibly 200  MW in all, and the biomass resource was very large—it is heavily forested like Finland and Sweden Lithuania’s National Energy Strategy envisaged a moderate expansion of new renewables, so that, on top of the existing 3%, they would supply 7% of electricity by 2010 Adding in the heat suppliers (mainly biomass), that translates to a total of 12% of the country’s primary energy by 2010, followed by a subsequent expansion to 14%

by 2020

While Lithuania’s energy situation was dominated by the Ignalina nuclear plant (which used to supply around 80% of the country’s electricity), Estonia relied heavily on oil shale, which supplied over

90% of its electricity Estonia does not produce, import, or refine crude oil and has no gas or coal reserves—gas is imported from Russia It does however make use of wood and peat for heating and also uses biomass for electricity generation Although the country is mostly flat, there are also some small hydro projects, around 1 MW

in all, supplying around 4 GWh (gigawatt hours of electricity) per annum (p.a.), and it has been suggested that it only, at present, uses about 1–2% of its total small-scale hydro potential Wind power, currently used on a small scale for isolated power needs, was being expanded with some major wind farm projects Estimates reported

by the EU-wide Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Programme (REEEP) suggested that by 2020 renewables capacity could be equivalent to around 30% of total current conventional generation capacity, with most of the new capacity being wind, the rest biomass

While Estonia relied mainly on oil shale, Latvia relied heavily on

peat and hydro In recent years, peat has constituted about 20–25%

of Latvia’s primary energy supply, although wood waste is also used for heating Peat is only a very slowly renewable fuel and so its rapid use on a large scale is not really sustainable Nearly 75% of Latvia’s

(continued)

Lithuania’s national target was to obtain 7% of its electricity from renewables by 2010 and 12% of its energy By 2005, it had reached 3.6%

of electricity and 15% of total energy It was thus doing quite well on the latter, this being mainly due to biomass heating In the longer term, its binding EU renewables energy target was to get 23% of total energy con-sumption by 2020 To achieve that, there was the possibility of converting oil-fired boilers to new biomass boilers Lithuania already had over 8 MW (thermal) of biomass heating capacity operation and had introduced new biomass technology in seven regional heating plants throughout the country, supplying 14% of the country’s heat (EC 2008) The overall situ-

electricity generating capacity is hydro, mainly from three recently modernised plants on the Daugava River (1500 MW in all), gener-ating typically around 2850 GWh p.a In theory, a further 1000 GWh could be obtained from new and upgraded hydro projects, small and large There was also some use of wind—around 24 MW had been installed in a wind farm at Ainazi, generating 4 GWh p.a The total wind resource was put at 1000 GWh p.a Although it has

a large hydro capacity, this can only be used for part of the year; so Latvia was importing around 2300 GWh p.a from fossil sources

In line with the EU 25 targets, it hoped to expand renewables to 49.3% of power by 2010, with a further increase later Estimates reported by REEEP suggest that by 2020 renewables could account for 70% of Latvia’s total existing generating capacity, with wind offering nearly half of this new capacity, hydro about a third, and biomass the rest

Looking further to the future, plans for a Baltic Grid, linking Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to EU grid networks, were seen as vital, helping to distribute and balance the electricity generated, pos-sibly as part of the proposed wider EU supergrid Clearly, with proj-ects like this in view, there was a role for wider networking and liaison around the Baltic states, as was reported at a conference in

St. Petersburg (Cook and Elliott 2005)

Box 2.1 (continued)

ation in district heating supply in 2008 was that 78% came from natural gas, 18% from biomass, 2.6% from crude oil, although the Updated National Energy Plan aimed for 50% of Lithuania’s central heating to be provided by biomass thermal production by 2020.

While the heat market was strong, the value of electricity was higher and Lithuania already had over 3 MW installed biomass-fired generation capacity, with a nine-fold rise in electricity generation from biomass expected between 2006 and 2017 However, hydro was the main source

of green electricity in Lithuania, with 128  MW in operation in 2006, representing 91% of the total electricity generated from renewables By contrast, wind was at 3% Nevertheless, Lithuania had a quite significant wind resource, although, with only around 54 MW installed by the mid-2000s, its exploitation has been relatively slow compared with some nearby countries, notably Denmark But expansion was expected, with the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) predicting 200 MW by

2010, with overall, a possible 54 times increase between 2006 and 2017

In terms of funding, among other things, Lithuania was looking for support for its energy efficiency and renewable energy plans from the EU Structural and Cohesion Funds, but in some ways, its attempts to attract funding from the EU were limited, given that Lithuania looked like it would achieve well below the emissions reduction target agreed for it in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations at Kyoto in 1997 That was because, after separation from the Soviet Bloc, its industrial production and energy use had fallen massively In 2006, Lithuania’s emissions were 53% lower than the 1990 base-year level, well ahead of its Kyoto target of an 8% reduction for the period 2008–2012 As the economy picked up, they would rise, but according to Lithuania’s projections, with the existing policies and measures, by 2010, emissions would still be 30% below base-year emissions

Given that Lithuania expected to overachieve its target significantly, reducing emissions was not an urgent issue as such But reducing (Russian) gas and oil imports was seen as vital, as was stimulating the economy and creating employment Renewables did offer one way to try

to meet these goals, while also meeting the EU’s mandatory Renewable Targets Clearly, changes were planned, with renewables playing a key role, but the motivations were mixed

2.3 EConomiC and politiCal drivErS for ChangEAlthough the EU renewable energy targets set the context in Lithuania and elsewhere, and local environmental conditions were often poor, envi-

ronmental concerns, although present, were not a major driver for

renew-ables take up in Lithuania, or in most other Central and Eastern European countries Instead, it was economics and the potential for cash injections Indeed, it could be argued that one reason for interest in renewables was that green projects were eligible for potentially valuable carbon credits under the EU-ETS

In the first round of the EU-ETS, the carbon cap level was set at a level which meant that some new EU countries were able to earn credits with very little or no effort—their emissions were lower than the cap, so they could sell off unused credits However, that situation would clearly not last forever As the economies of the new EU countries expanded, so would emissions, unless new technologies were introduced The advent of

a new EU-ETS regime, with tighter carbon caps would also change the situation, although given political resistance from some high-carbon countries, that was not likely to happen quickly

Not surprisingly then, there was also interest in getting funding for the development of new renewable energy projects via the EU Framework R&D support programme and for deployment support under the Kyoto

‘Joint Implementation’ programme In the event, that had not proved very productive, with most funding having been obtained ad hoc via Green Investment Schemes and via REEEP, and other aid programmes and agencies

These patterns of development were emerging in a rapidly changing context in which, rather than new technological developments, what was occurring in many of the new EU countries was the privatisation of exist-ing (state) capacity, and then the liberalisation of markets, as part of the process turning these countries into fully capitalist economies

One result was that energy prices had risen dramatically, with fuel erty becoming a major problem, a key issue in the often cold climates of Eastern and Central Europe, where temperatures in winter often drop to –17°C. Whereas under communism, energy was cheap, although ineffi-ciently generated, delivered, and used, it was now expensive, and the state had to offer various types of subsidy to the energy poor to head off social crises Improving energy efficiency might help, but given the desperate need for energy, any gains would be likely to be wiped out by increased use, so emissions would continue to rise

pov-The impact of fuel poverty—and poverty in general—was clear from reactions to surveys carried out on attitudes to energy prices In 2006, a Eurobarometer poll on Energy Issues interviewed 12,509 people from the EU-25 Overall, across the EU, when asked if they would be prepared to pay more for energy produced from renewable sources than for energy produced from other sources, 59% said they would not pay any more, while 24% would pay a premium of up to 5%, 8% would pay a premium of 6% to 10%, 2% would pay 11% to 25% more, 1% would pay a premium of more than 25%, and 7% did not know.

The report noted that there was a clear gap between the former EU-15 Member States and the new EU states ‘with the latter group being clearly more reluctant to pay higher prices for green energy’ It went on ‘Among

EU member states, citizens in Portugal (78% saying no, up 8 points), Latvia (78%, + 8 points), Lithuania (75%, + 2 points) and Slovakia (74%, -2 points) are the most reluctant to make energy consumption efforts if that demands financial sacrifices.’ Bulgaria and Romania, at that point not yet in the EU, were also surveyed Bulgaria had the highest opposition price rises of all, at 80%, while 38% of the Romanian sample said they would not reduce energy use or pay more It is worth noting in this con-text that many Romanians were still off-grid, a situation that has persisted, with a recent report noting that nearly 100,000 Romanians were still off- grid in the Northern region of the country (Rodina 2017)

Overall, the 2006 survey found that countries where people were less prepared to pay more for renewables had far lower GDPs than the EU average, as well as a higher unemployment rates It added that ‘it is very likely that there is a link between the standard of living and higher willing-ness to pay more for renewable energy’ That will take time to change.Clearly, the ex-Soviet Bloc countries faced both the legacy of Communism and the problems of Western-style free markets In theory, market competition is meant to push prices down, but in practice, markets were increasingly dominated by oligarchic companies, concerned mainly about profits, while their governments tried to compensate with subsidies

to deal with fuel poverty Economic expansion might help reduce these problems, although equally, it could create wider gaps between rich and poor By contrast, some of the legacies of communism might be benefi-cial—for example, the existence of district heating networks in many cities,

a classic centralised state technology But mostly, it is a problematic acy—the belief in large-scale centralised technology inhibits acceptance of more flexible, smaller scale, renewables Equally, so did the pressing need

leg-to meet demand at acceptable prices

Coal may be a dirty option, but it existed in quantities nearby (e.g

in Poland), although the main source was Russia, and there were ous political attractions in avoiding the need to import coal from Russia

obvi-At the same time, there was also pressure to reduce emission, if only so

as to continue to be able to earn emission credits In that context, although it too would have to be imported from Russia, a switch to gas (with its somewhat lower carbon rating) might be considered to be eas-ier than investing in what some might see as exotic ideas such as (zero-carbon) renewables Even (low-carbon) nuclear power might be viewed

as an easier option New nuclear was not an issue in the Balkans, but along with the wider political, economic, and technology choice issues,

it certainly came to the fore in subsequent areas looked by the OU team, Bulgaria, and Romania, as well as in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland

2.4 thE BalkanS and BEyond

As a ‘stock taking’ exercise, as noted above, in 2006, the OU team, in conjunction with the UK Energy Research Centre, organised an interna-tional conference at the OU, with representatives from all the new and candidate EU countries invited (EERU 2006)

The conference indicated that there was quite strong interest in ables across many of the new EU countries, although it varied with local political and economic conditions For example, Bulgaria and Romania seemed particularly keen to press ahead The potential for wind in that region certainly looked large, as later data confirmed See Table 2.2 The OU New Europe New Energy team, subsequently, therefore focused on these two countries, and the Balkan area generally, in the next phase of its work.Outreach work included a roundtable session organised at the World Energy Council Regional Partnership in Sustainable Energy event in Neptune, Romania, and many local meetings, culminating in a major conference in March 2008  in Zagreb, looking at the Balkan and the wider Central and Eastern European situation, organised in conjunc-tion with REEEP, the Energy Institute Hrvoje Pozar, and North-West Croatia Energy Agency

renew-The potential was seen as huge: around 30 GW (gigawatt) in all by

2020, as indicated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which had reported estimates from consultants Black and Veatch (Table 2.2)

So, how far had they got with expansion? The Zagreb conference noted that by the end of 2007, Poland had installed 276 MW of wind capacity, Hungary 65 MW, the Czech Republic 116 MW, Lithuania 50 MW, the rest lesser amounts, in all 526 MW in the new EU. But wind was not the only option In 2005, Latvia, with its major hydro input (75% of its power), had already reached its EU 2010 targets for renewable electricity From ‘old’ Europe, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Germany, as well as Finland, were not far behind But while most of the other ‘old’ EU coun-tries were below 50% of their 2010 target, most of Central Eastern Europe was doing better, particularly Hungary It seemed that some of the latter might do even better in terms of energy, since they have large biomass heat resources.

By contrast, it might be that to meet its new target for renewables to supply 20% of all EU energy by 2020, the EU overall would have to make use of the new Guarantee of Origin scheme giving import credits for power bought in from outside the EU Croatia was one option: at this point, it was still waiting for EU membership In 2004, Croatia got 16.7%

of its energy from renewables, and was looking to expand It had adopted

a FiT scheme Its wind potential had been put at 1.3 GW.  Bosnia- Herzegovina was not far behind, getting 15.2% of its energy from renew-ables in 2003 Turkey had an even larger wind resource, put at 10 GW, and also a large geothermal energy potential, using heat from deep under-ground The Ukraine’s large wind potential could also offer EU import options

Table 2.2 Central and Eastern EU Renewable Potentials MW(e) by 2020

Looking further afield, beyond even the wildest EU enlargement sies, some of the Eastern ex-Soviet Bloc countries had huge wind resources—for example, on EBRD estimates for 2020, Kazakhstan, 8 GW and Turkmenistan, 10 GW—and major hydro resource, for example, Tajikistan 19 GW. See Table 2.3 Some of these countries, such as those nearer the EU, were looking to Joint Implementation (JI) schemes, or in some cases, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, with the

fanta-EU earning carbon credits Exports of power to the fanta-EU were also a sibility Note the huge potential in Russia—an issue we will come back to.Even leaving extra-EU developments and import speculations aside, the hope was that under the right conditions, renewables could develop as much in the East as in the West, or maybe even more However, as was indicated at the Zagreb gathering, the reality on the ground was more complex There were many technical, financial, and institutional obstacles The Zagreb meeting focused on those SE Europe countries currently seeking EU membership, and it was clear that getting good electricity grid connections was a problem for dispersed renewables in many of them There were also growing issues concerning the summer cooling load, as

pos-Table 2.3 Central & Eastern Europe: Renewable 2020 Potentials outside the

air-conditioners spread Although some, such as Croatia, were doing well

in attempting to meet the conditions of the accession process, some others were a fair way behind in terms of developing plans for renewable energy support/deployment—in particular, Bosnia-Herzegovina Unsurprisingly, Kosovo, which had declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and was under UN protection, also had a way to go But like Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania were moving ahead with FiTs, while Serbia was considering one, although there were no actual renewable projects there at that point

Funding was a key issue Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and Macedonia were all developing CDM projects, with Italy providing funding for the last two Meanwhile, some renewable targets were emerging, for instance, Croatia was aiming for 5.75%, Macedonia for 5.7%, both by 2010

So, some progress was thus being made in the potential candidate EU countries, following that made by those in the last wave of accession, although Romania was setting the bar high, with a 2010 target of getting 33% of its electricity from renewables, rising to 35% in 2015, 38% by 2020.Progress was reviewed at the World Renewable Energy Congress held

in Glasgow in July 2008, with sessions on renewables in Central and Eastern Europe coordinated by the OU New Europe-New Energy team (Cook and Elliott 2008) Papers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland indicated that progress was being made there, if a bit slowly, and there was also an interesting contribution on Cyprus Its EU target was to get 6% of electricity from renewables by 2010, with wind seen as the main contributor, and 13% of its energy from renewables by 2020 (it was around 4% at that time), and it was pressing ahead with a financial incentive in the form of a special fund, with revenue derived from a levy of 0.22 eurocent/kWh on the consumption of electricity This provided grants for some projects, but most were also supported by a FiT Turkey also got some attention at the conference It was, at the time, still a long-shot candidate for EU membership, and as noted earlier, has a very large wind potential and geothermal resource

At this time, Kosovo—then newly separated from Serbia—was pressing ahead with its energy plan, seeking to meet the targets and conditions imposed by the EU, as part of its accession process, by developing its renewable potential It was the subject of a special study by the OU team, supported by the EU. As in many Eastern European countries, coal still dominated in Kosovo (3008 GWh of electricity in 2004), oil was next (117 GWh), and the only renewable used for electricity generation was

hydro, with 35 MW in place generating 113 GWh in 2004, out of 4199 GWh total electricity—that is, under 3% Biomass was used widely for heat—in 2007, representing 11% of total energy use, including transport,

or 17% of total energy supply without transport

As for the future, no detailed resource estimates for Kosovo seemed to exist, but indicative targets had wind running up to 4.24% of electricity by

2017, although the use of biomass for electricity would only grow slowly and hydro would stay the same As a result, total renewable electricity would

be 7.78% by 2017 There was also interest in solar heat and geothermal energy But even with its large hydroelectricity and biomass heat contribu-tions, that would not put it on a par with some other Balkan countries—Croatia got 16.7% of total energy from renewables in 2004 Kosovo was developing a FiT-type approach, which was expected to speed things along, but it was still slow going Given that, and the urgent need to deal with fuel poverty and cold buildings, the OU team’s effort focused mainly on energy efficiency and the development of improved heating systems

In 2009, the OU New Europe New Energy project refocused on Albania, very much on the frontiers of the EU. Albania gets over 90% of its power from hydro However, that is highly dependent on hydrological conditions, and output has been constrained in recent years As demand has increased over the past 10 years, Albania has therefore become a net electricity importer—in the early and mid-1990s, it had been a net exporter By the second half of 2000, serious electricity shortages emerged, with frequent blackouts

It had been looking to wind power In an Italian-led proposal, for what was billed as the largest wind farm in Europe so far, a 500 MW array with

250 machines in a national park would export power to Italy via an sea cable Looking more to its own needs, Albania planned to have 1.6

under-GW of wind plant and hoped to get 4% of its power from wind by 2020 The OU team helped with data collection on wind speeds and by explor-ing the grid issues

Albania represented perhaps the poorest, least developed of the EU, or near EU, countries the OU team looked at But even there, the potential was quite good, and as we shall see, like many of the other countries the

OU team looked at, it has subsequently gone on to expand its renewable capacity quite successfully Indeed, in many cases, as predicted earlier, the new EU countries have done better than the old EU countries, despite some dissent and counter-trends—for example, in countries still heavily committed to coal or to nuclear—and the wider social, economic, and political constraints (Cook and Elliott 2012)

2.5 SUBSEqUEnt dEvElopmEntS in CEntral

and EaStErn EUropE and BEyond

As we have seen, in the 2000s, the OU New Europe-New Energy project had carried out resource and project assessments for many of the new and candidate EU countries, as well as for some outside the EU.  Having reached the point when EU enlargement was over and its immediate impacts had reached a degree of stability, as we shall see later, the OU team moved on to a new EU-supported project, looking at Africa as part

of the UN Sustainable Energy for All programme.

Progress has continued in the new EU countries, although the early high expectations were not always reached, in part, due to wider political and economic changes, including the global recession and a shift to the right in some of the new EU countries, with a more nationalistic stance being taken Recent reviews of the situation in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria (Jankowska and Ancygier 2017; Davidescu 2017; Hiteva and Maltby 2017) highlight some of the differences resulting from varying national stances and reactions to EU renewables and climate policy, with Poland (keen to protect its coal base) resisting and being seen as a laggard, while, although there were some problems, there was more progress being made in Romania and Bulgaria Indeed, Romania reached its 24% renew-able energy target for 2020 in 2014, while Bulgaria also overshot its 16%

2020 target, though that then led to a slowdown

Meanwhile, some Baltic states did very well, with Latvia becoming one

of the EU leaders in renewable energy, second only to Sweden and Finland

in terms of the percentage of total energy supplied by renewables, although note that non-EU members Norway and Iceland did much better, due mainly to their large hydro inputs See Table 2.4

As can be seen, within the EU, while in 2015, 53.9% of Sweden’s gross final consumption of energy was met from renewables, ahead of Finland at 39.3%, Latvia managed 37.6% Moreover, seven of the new EU countries have had already surpassed their national 2020 renewable energy target Bulgaria had reached 18.2%, the Czech Republic 15.1%, Estonia 28.6%, Croatia 29%, Lithuania 25.8%, Hungary 14.5%, and Romania 24.8%, while Slovakia at 12.9% was about 1 percentage point from its 2020 tar-get, and Slovenia (at 22%) and Poland (at 11.8%) were both around 3 percentage points away from their 2020 targets

At the opposite end of the scale, the United Kingdom languished at 8.2%, 6.8 percentage points below its 2020 target, only beating Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Malta

Table 2.4 European countries, percentage of renewables in gross final energy

Outside of the EU, Albania reached 32%, Montenegro 43.1%, and FYR

of Macedonia 19.9% Overall then, the new EU countries and those nearby have done well, better in percentage terms than some of the old EU coun-tries, though not yet in capacity terms: only Romania has more than 10

GW, a tenth of what Germany has (IRENA 2017) See Table 2.5

In all this, the EU played a key role, defining and pressing for targets, and offering technical support, although, as mentioned earlier, there were also cases when EU directives were resisted as not being compatible with some national priorities (Solorio and Jorgens 2017)

Looking further afield, as noted earlier, several countries to the East of the EU also have major potential and could become major players, and possibly net exporters of renewable power to the EU. For example, the wind potential in Kazakhstan has been put at over 200 GW, and as we shall see later, maybe much more

Table 2.5 Renewable capacities in 2016, in Central and Eastern Europe, MW