The Central European North-South Infrastructure Corridor is a key enabler for completing the European integration process by bolstering the connectivity, competitiveness and security of the EU- 11 and the European Union overall. Successful implementation of the Corridor would be a historical milestone in European integration, yielding enormous political, economic and social benefits. Full Report
Costa Rica is well on its way to becoming the first developing country to have 100% renewable electricity. Thanks to our hydro, wind and geothermal resources, 98% of our power is already renewable according to official data (Spanish website). This year, Costa Rica had 100% renewable power for 94 consecutive days. This achievement took several decades to build and the next milestone is to ensure that our electricity system is 100% renewable the whole year. This will require us to replace distributed diesel generators – that are used as a back-up source – with distributed, renewable energy resources.
The state-owned Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) plans to add more hydro, wind and geothermal power plants and retirie the heavy fuel oil-powered Moin plant in 2017. ICE also plan to improve the efficiency of existing plants that run on fossil fuels. For example, by using German technology to increase efficiency at the Garabito plant, it will go from producing 200MW to 280MW.
With Costa Rican citizens and entrepreneurs excited about solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and bioenergy, the country is now on track to have a fossil-free power system by 2025 – probably earlier.
Afghanistan
Ironically, some of Afghanistan’s most challenging characteristics support the growth of renewable energy. The fragmented nature of the country – geographically and politically – means that it will always be a big ask to build and maintain the sort of large-scale electricity grid typically powered by coal or gas. Such things depend on good governance and a central authority – not much in evidence in Afghanistan. So decentralised power generation – owned and controlled by local people – which can harness local sources of energy, is more favourable.
Secondly, Afghanistan has renewable energy sources in abundance. Much of the country enjoys high levels of sunshine; its upland areas have decent wind potential, and its rivers can be harvested by small-scale hydro plants. These don’t involve large, damaging dams, but small diversions of enough water to drive turbines producing electricity for a few villages.
That may all sound a little optimistic, but there’s practical work underway. In the northern provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar, more than 12,000 homes, schools, markets, local businesses and hospitals are currently being supplied with power by a mix of hydro and solar plants. These were installed by the German development agency, GiZ, in close collaboration with both the government and, more importantly, local people, who are trained to operate and run them as semi-independent enterprises. The scheme won an Ashden Award for sustainable energy.
China
China has emerged as the world’s renewables superpower in less than a decade of highly focused development – the country is the world’s largest producer and user of renewable energy technologies. The official target of the Chinese government is for non-fossil fuels to grow to 20% of total energy consumption by 2030, rising from the current level of 11%. Meanwhile coal consumption is to becapped at 4.2bn tons by 2020. China is also committed to a significant increase of the electricity generating capacity based on renewable sources, doubling wind and quadrupling solar by 2020.
Those targets are likely to be achieved, given China’s track record to date. In fact consumption of coal has already started to decline, a Great Reversal of the trend for the past decade. As a result, revenues, profit, and stock prices of coal and oil companies have all fallen sharply.
There are divergent views in China over the future for renewables beyond 2030. A recent study by the Energy Research Institute within China’s central planning body has made a strong case for renewables to account for 60% of the total energy consumption and 85% of electricity by 2050; while the China Academy of Engineering projects that renewables will account for just over 40% of total energy consumption by 2050 (Chinese article). One conclusion is clear across many studies, though, that it is both technically and economically feasible for China to phase out fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind.
The trajectory of China’s future energy system is determined by competitive dynamics between the old and the new. China’s coal-fired power stations, currently of about 900GW of capacity, need to be decommissioned over the next decades. China is also building projects such as pipelines that transport oil and gas from all over the world, and the lock-in effect will be a challenge for renewables to overcome.
On the other hand, China continues to invest in renewables at a scale that dwarfs that of other countries. China invested nearly $90bn in clean energy in 2014, or 73% more than the US, building large solar parks in Qinghai and wind farms in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, just to name a few. China also leads the world in some key areas of infrastructure, such as high speed railways and smart grid technologies, which will facilitate a new model of energy consumption and supply, and one that makes a break with the system based on fossil fuels.
With more than 20% of India’s population currently coping without access to electricity, the government has promised to provide all households with constant power supply before the next national election in 2019. Meanwhile, the Make in India campaign seeks an expansion of manufacturing capabilities in the country, which will also depend heavily on – and increase the demand for – access to power.
Development for all is dependent on electricity for all, which will simply not be possible without decentralised solutions, best served by renewable energy sources. Earlier this year, the central government announced an ambitious target of 175GW of renewable energy of which 100GW would come from solar alone, by 2022. But growth in the sector has been relatively slow, considering the immense potential: according to the Indian ministry of renewable energy, the total installed solar capacity crossed over 3GW for the first time in December last year, adding only 886MW in 2014 – in contrast, Tata Solar Power, in a report released in 2014, estimated that India could reach 145GW of solar by 2024. This good news has further positive implications: as solar power rapidly becomes a mainstream energy option, the industry could create over 670,000 new, clean-energy jobs in India.
These positives however, would be impossible to achieve without a paradigm shift in policies that boost the rapidly improving business of renewables. It will be important to ensure that this shift from polluting power to clean renewables is done in a way where citizens are in greater control over their own power supply, as virtually infinite potential from wind and solar energy can truly democratise the generation of, and access to, power.
Albania
Albania, a small country of 2.77 million inhabitants, has big potential and an exciting future for renewable energy. Driven by a desire to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and promote a secure supply of energy, the government of Albania has been very eager to encourage increased investment in renewable energy and in 2013 a law was passed to promote renewable energy.
The new renewable energy law sets a nationally binding target for renewable energy (non-hydro) of 38% by the year 2020. In addition, it provides for priority grid access for renewable energy projects, for streamlined licensing procedures, for the ability to sign sale and purchase agreements for renewable energy for up to 15 years and for preferential feed-in-tariffs, to be established by the regulator. This package of measures should provide greater confidence to investors that their investments in renewable energy in Albania offer an attractive rate of return in a country that, for its size, has abundant renewable energy resources.
Water is Albania’s most important natural resource. At least eight large rivers run through the country, fed by hundreds of smaller streams and total hydropower resources are estimated at 4500MW. In addition, solar energy potential (for both photovoltaics and solar hot-water heaters) is excellent as the country has among the highest number of sunshine hours per year inEurope (an average of 2,400). Wind energy potential for Albania is also very good along the Adriatic coast.
The law on renewable energy was passed two years ago but investment in non-hydro renewable energy in the country is yet to take off. Partly this is because secondary legislation is not yet in place and partly because of lack of private sector awareness of the possibilities available.
Over the longer term, the potential for increased investment in renewable energy in Albania is excellent as the country becomes an energy exporter. Albania plans to spend over $200m to build power cables to Italy, a country with excess energy demand. This should help drive additional investment in renewable energy.
Canada’s Bankers Petroleum has agreed with Albania’s national resources watchdog to pick a third-party auditor to resolve a tax dispute over its 2011 spending, the company and Albanian officials said on Monday.
Bankers Petroleum has been extracting oil for 11 years in the Patos-Marinza oil field under an output-sharing contract which allows it to recover costs before paying profit tax. It has paid royalties and other taxes but no profit tax.
An audit of Bankers’ books for 2011 by the Agency for National Resources (AKBN) disputed some $250 million dollars in expenditure, triggering a $57 million profit tax demand by the Finance Ministry.
The international auditor is expected to be selected in a matter of weeks but its ruling will take several months.
“This represents a significant step towards enhancing transparency in the administration and regulation of oil and gas activities in Albania,” David French, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bankers Petroleum, said in a statement.
“Bankers views this commitment by the authorities as an important milestone in the ongoing improvement of our operations,” French said, adding he expected it to resolve the tax demand dispute.
Dael Dervishi, the head of Albania’s National Resources Agency, said the two sides had agreed to turn to a third-party and take all other steps before taking the dispute to an international arbitration court.
“We agreed to allow a third party to review all the audit findings for 2011 to advise both parties, because either we were too harsh or the company was not diligent enough”, Dervishi told Reuters. The third party would tell them “which of us should give in,” he added. //Reuters
While TAP pipeline construction has started, Albania will become part of the international gas network, paving the need for gasification of the country with a network of special and brand new. This project requires huge investments that lie in years, while the master plan for the gasification is underway and expected to be ready next October.
Official sources at the Ministry of Economy of Albania stated that the Azeri company has expressed interest to implement the gasification infrastructure, since it is one of the main shareholders of the oil field and gas transmission by TAP.
The same sources indicated that the master plan ends in autumn next year. Then, they provided the financial support to continue with the detailed planning, which means you will study potential areas of Albania where possible will be the construction of gas distribution networks.
Experts at the Ministry of Energy of Albania say that Albania can have a consumption of about 1 billion cubic meters of gas, an amount one tenth of the initial capacity of the pipeline.
The goals of the Master Plan and further feasibility studies aimed at introducing the element of gas consumption by households.
Sources in the Ministry of Energy stated that the law on public-private partnership leaves room to find strategic investors for the gasification process. The same sources indicated that SOCAR Azerbaijan has expressed interest, but other countries have expressed interest, as have the opportunities because of the possession of gas.
Productive Activities Commission today approved the draft of the natural gas sector, which aims to improve the management of this strategic sector for the Albanian economy. This law also will ensure the development of strategic projects in the gas sector, such as the TAP project, IAP project, etc.
During the design phase are taken into account and are reflected recent developments in the Albanian legislation that directly or indirectly related to the gas sector. It is especially taken into consideration and found reflection legal and regulatory framework for the development of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP project), ensuring in this new bill continuity and stability in legislative terms.
As concerns the gas sector legislation, the scope of its activity is not included for the production of gas, in terms of a regulated activity and to be licensed by the ERE. In the case of gas, given that we are dealing with a natural energy source involved in hydrocarbons (whether natural gas or as accompanying gas) for its production activity is regulated by law “On the research and production of hydrocarbons”.
The draft law “On Natural Gas Sector” aimed at amending the existing law of 2008, under the implementation of the Third Energy Package of the European Union, in terms of development, liberalization and market sector and the interconnection of natural gas. This legislative initiative was prepared with the assistance of the Energy Community Secretariat, but has been considered and included almost entirely existing gas law.
This bill (with 9 chapters and 117 articles) consists of two main pillars:
-. The organization and functioning of the gas market as a regulated market, which according to the Third Energy Package of the EU’s natural gas sector, will be a market “fully open / liberalized”.
-. Construction and operation of infrastructure and installations of gas (including technical and technological) for the supply, transportation, storage and distribution of natural gas, which is essentially the main role in terms of organization and the executive but also has supervisory Ministry and the structures and institutions composed and under its supervision.
Through this new bill are predicting significant changes in the legal framework for the gas sector, changes that include: – Conservation and ensuring legal and institutional stability. – Specification of responsibilities and powers of the PM and the Ministry responsible for energy sector. – Increasing the role and responsibilities of Commissioners mainly about the monitoring of the market, competition and consumer protection. ERE in this bill is designed in a new dimension by cooperating closely with the Ministry in connection with monitoring the market but always without interfering with the powers of another institution. – Review and revision of some articles of the current gas law (eg “Combined operator”, “Measurement of natural gas”), also due to considering the specifications, connections and size of developments that may this gas sector in Albania. – Definitions for the preparation of regulations for the activity of underground gas storage and liquefied natural gas. – Regulation of ownership issues in the activity of natural gas, setting exactly the rights group affected, as dealing with infrastructure and related installations. – Increased cooperation between the entities, state bodies involved in this law. – Re-evaluation of the report of the central executive bodies in some activities more clearly defining the authority of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry responsible for energy, or ERE.
– Determination Program Officer and compliance, which is a new and more important to formulate for the first time in this bill, as required by EU legislation, setting out the rules to guarantee the transparency of transactions, independence of operators (TSOs and DSO). – Has been added as a new chapter, “The market natural gas and market regulations and the system”, where in addition to organizing the market and trade of natural gas in an article on its own are also included measures to promote the market opening that and it constitutes one of the main goals of the Third Energy Package of the EU.
In terms of organization and functioning of the gas sector in Albania, in this bill has some specific features that make up the difference from other areas of the energy sector, thus: – There is only one operator Transmission System (TSO) for gas at the country level, but provided and enable the existence and functioning of some s TSOs gas, so the System Operator (DSO) of gas to forecast some such nationwide.
– It included the role of function “combined Operator”, which reflects how relevant and concrete developments in the gas sector in Albania, as well as specifics on the size and capacity is expected to have gas market in Albania.
– They are fully involved and issues of oversight and inspection in terms of technical and technological safety for construction, use and maintenance of plant and gas infrastructure sector including supply, transportation, storage, and distribution of natural gas. It is not only clearly defined the role of the Ministry in this regard, but also the role and function of the State Inspectorate responsible for the gas sector.
It is taken into consideration and reflected the fact that activities associated with natural gas, but are activities related to fuels, as are the activities dealing with equipment, installations and plants under pressure.
Also in the preparation of this bill have been considered and are reflected in the measure that was considered reasonable and was rated in accordance with legal logic, the comments of stakeholders and ministries, for which we can say that they are taken into account most of the comments made.
