Turning waste into climate-friendly energy

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THE DANISH ENERGY INDUSTRIES FEDERATION – SpEcIAl ADvERTISING SUpplEmENT Powering your house with electricity from your car ”In comparison to other countries, much of Denmark’s energy production is already decentralised. Around 30 percent is renewable energy, and up to 50 percent of intrinsically fluctuating wind energy will be integrated into the grid by 2020. It is clearly an advantage to have this expertise, which we can use to lead the way in creating development and growth,” says Andreea Balasiu. In the smart grid of the future, private dwellings will be equipped to produce renewable energy as well as consume it, so householders can both buy and sell electricity to the grid. One of the companies working to make this a reality is Siemens. By: Marianne Sommer Somewhere in Denmark, an electric vehicle (EV) arrives home to a house with solar panels on the roof and its own wind turbine. There is still plenty of power in the EV battery, which is plugged into the house’s own electricity grid. Because it is a time of day when many householders are operating electrical equipment and electricity is more expensive, the householder uses electricity from the EV battery. During the night, when electricity is cheaper, the EV battery can then be charged up from the grid. ”What can make this scenario a future reality is that every house will be equipped with an intelligent electricity meter which enables electricity to be sold to or bought from the grid depending on whether the house is generating more or less electricity than it needs. At the same time, the usage of electricity inside the house can be made more intelligent,” says Andreea Balasiu, Sales Manager at Siemens. HOME AuTOMATION Software applications will need to be developed for electricity companies so that they can constantly monitor which types of production plant are producing energy, how much renewable energy there is in the system, and what the pattern of energy consumption and level of demand look like. ”Every house will be equipped with a home automation unit, which can plan and control energy use in the dwelling and minimise electricity bills by adjusting electricity use according to price and availability. Consumption can also be controlled by using a web portal or smart phone app, so you don’t even have to be at home to control electricity consumption in your house,” says Balasiu. Eu suppORT NEEdEd In order to realise these visions for tomorrow’s energy system, political support is needed. ”The EU plays an important role in the financing of demonstration projects, and also has an eye to formulating standards. All member states need to be part of the standardisation process so that systems are established which operate across borders. It wouldn’t make sense to have an EV that can only be charged up in one country – the system must function across borders, just as mobile phones work anywhere where there is a network connection,” says Balasiu.
KEEpING THE BIlls dOWN Calculations from Energinet.dk show that when heat pumps are deployed in the future, and petrol- and dieselengined vehicles have been replaced with EVs, electricity consumption by a typical family will treble, but the cost of it will not. ”Although consumption will increase, the electricity bill will be 10-15 percent lower because we will become more attentive to when it is cheapest to use electricity,” says Kim Behnke, THE DANISH ENERGY INDUSTRIES FEDERATION – SpEcIAl ADvERTISING SUpplEmENT head of research and environment at Energinet.dk. Old electricity meters have already been replaced with digital meters in half of all Danish households. Energinet.dk forecasts that the transition to tomorrow’s energy system, where a device will be coupled to the digital electricity meter to provide automated control of electrical equipment in the home, will gradually take place over the next three to five years. · ”It will be smart to let the large energy users, take the lead, They will realise significant economic benefits by saving on energy at the right times,” says Kim Behnke. WAsTE-TO- ENERGY plANTs IN dENMARK: Turning waste into climate-friendly energy In Scandinavia, combustible household waste is fully used as a valuable and cost-effective resource for producing electricity and district heating. By Maren Urban Swart Denmark makes extensive use of the energy contained in household waste by combusting it in combined heat and power stations, all of which are connected to the local district heating system. ”Our use of energy from household waste is 100 percent, because the steam in the combustion flue gases is condensed and reused for heating. This has the effect of keeping our use of coal and gas to a minimum,” says director of technology and marketing Ole Madsen of Babcock & Wilcox Vølund, a leading international supplier of knowledge, equipment and technology for power plants which produce environmentally friendly energy from the combustion of household waste and biofuels. Denmark has cutting-edge knowledge and expertise in waste-to-energy technologies. The industry employs several thousand specialists engaged in optimising energy production in an environmentally- and climate- friendly way, and has great potential for creating exports and green growth. ”Life Cycle Analysis shows that energy production based on the combustion of waste is in most cases the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective way of using available technologies. This has been documented by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark in their assessment of a new state-of-the-art power station in Copenhagen,” says Madsen. ·
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Turning waste into climate-friendly energy

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