Wind energy cuts the electricity bill

A study by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has analyzed the electricity market in Spain from 2008 to 2012, the period that saw the maximum penetration of renewable energy

2014-09-03

(Press-News.org) This news release is available in Spanish.

The UPV/EHU study analyses the electricity market in Spain during the 2008-2012 period -a time of maximum renewable penetration in Spain when energy production within the Special Scheme saw a 57% increase- and quantifies its cost.

To do this, they firstly measured the market savings produced by participating in renewable sources, and secondly, they calculated the amount paid in the form of incentives to green energy. The difference between the two figures represents the net cost of renewable energy. In contrast to other studies published until now, "in this work the separate results for renewable technology are presented for the first time, demonstrating that the general conclusions cannot be applied to all the technologies across the board," pointed out Cristina Pizarro-Irizar, the lead author of the research.

As regards the most significant results obtained, they stress that in the initial stages (2008-2009), when the installed renewable capacity was much lower, the savings that renewable generation as a whole produced on the electricity market exceeded the costs of the system. "It signified savings of between 25 and 45 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), depending on the year," stresses Pizarro-Irizar.

However, from 2010 onwards when renewable generation began to grow exponentially, the regulatory costs rose excessively, imposing a positive net cost on the system. "The penetration of renewable energy starts to be so high that the market prices do not fall any further and yet the costs of the incentives do in fact rise. There is a turning point and it is at that precise moment that the system is no longer sustainable. On the Spanish electricity market, that turning point was reached in 2010," explained Cristina Pizarro-Irizar.

Separate analysis of the different sources In any case, when analysing the various renewable sources separately, they saw that there are substantial differences between them. This is due "firstly to the market penetration of each of the technologies and, secondly, to the difference in incentives between technologies," stressed Pizarro-Irizar.

So "today, wind energy continues to produce greater savings than what its incentives amount to, while photovoltaic solar technologies have not yet managed to secure a big enough participation on the electricity market to be profitable, as they are still in their development phase," she pointed out. In other words, "the market costs would be higher if there was no wind energy, but that would not happen with solar technologies, which have traditionally received higher feed-in tariffs," pointed out Pizarro-Irizar.

Cristina Pizarro-Irizar concludes that "the results of this research point to the importance of designing the incentive systems correctly and the risk of oversizing the feed-in tariff for some technologies".

It should be pointed out that Pizarro-Irizar does not view the future as very promising for renewable energy, because owing to the lack of grants, among other things, no new renewable capacity is being installed in Spain. "All this will affect us, from the environmental point of view -since we will go on generating energy using technologies that emit carbon dioxide- and also economically -due to the use of technologies that use gas, which has to be imported-," pointed out Pizarro-Irizar.

INFORMATION: Additional information The Bilbao Energy Research Team (BERT) is part of the Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II of the Faculty of Economic and Business Studies in Bilbao of the UPV/EHU. The research group is led by Maria Paz Espinosa, Doctor in Economics of the University of Harvard and Professor of the Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II at the UPV/EHU.

The work is part of the PhD thesis of Cristina Pizarro-Irizar, Telecommunications Engineer of the UPV/EHU; it has been written up with funding from the non-PhD-holder research personnel training programme of the Department of Education, Language Planning and Culture of the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community, the Spanish Ministry for the Economy and Competitiveness, and the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community. Cristina Pizarro-Irizar will be collaborating with the Competence Centre Energy Policy and Energy Markets of the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe (Germany) for three months, from 1 May to 31 July.

Reference:

A. Ciarreta, M. P. Espinosa, C. Pizarro-Irizar. "Is green energy expensive? Empirical evidence from the Spanish electricity market". Energy Policy 69: 205-215 (2014)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.02.025

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Mouse studies advance treatment for common eye diseases

2014-09-03

Working with mice, a multicenter team of researchers has found a new way to reduce the abnormal blood vessel growth and leakage in the eye that accompany some eye diseases. The finding could lead to the development of new drugs for wet macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. The team reports their findings in the Sept. 2 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The current standard of clinical care for wet macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema is repeated injections into the eye of antibodies against a protein called VEGF. Each injection costs ...

UNH survey: Milk prices top concern of Northeastern organic dairy farmers

2014-09-03

Northeastern organic dairy farms say their top concern is receiving steady, fair prices for their milk from milk processors, according to a new survey that is the first to assess the research and educational needs of organic dairy farmers in the region. The research is funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. While this finding won't come as news to dairy farmers, it may surprise organic milk consumers who pay considerably more for organic milk than conventional milk at the grocery. ...

Handheld scanner could make brain tumor removal more complete, reducing recurrence

2014-09-03

Cancerous brain tumors are notorious for growing back despite surgical attempts to remove them — and for leading to a dire prognosis for patients. But scientists are developing a new way to try to root out malignant cells during surgery so fewer or none get left behind to form new tumors. The method, reported in the journal ACS Nano, could someday vastly improve the outlook for patients. Moritz F. Kircher and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center point out that malignant brain tumors, particularly the kind known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), are among ...

Nature or nurture? It's all about the message

2014-09-03

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Were Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci born brilliant or did they acquire their intelligence through effort? No one knows for sure, but telling people the latter – that hard work trumps genes – causes instant changes in the brain and may make them more willing to strive for success, indicates a new study from Michigan State University. The findings suggest the human brain is more receptive to the message that intelligence comes from the environment, regardless of whether it's true. And this simple message, said lead investigator Hans Schroder, ...

Could a protein be linked to heart attacks?

2014-09-03

OTTAWA, September 3, 2014 – A team of researchers at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, led by Dr. Alexandre Stewart, have uncovered an intriguing link between heart attacks and a protein that is of great interest to drug companies for its impact on cholesterol. The team found that levels of the protein PCSK9 were elevated in the blood of patients having an acute heart attack, but not in those who never had a heart attack or who had recovered from one previously. The results were replicated in two separate groups of patients, all of whom have coronary artery disease ...

New paper calls for more infection control surveillance, standardization in the emergency department

2014-09-03

Washington, DC, September 3, 2014 – When researchers searched the literature to determine adherence rates for various infection prevention protocols in the emergency department (ED), they discovered both a dearth of studies reporting ED practices and a lack of standardization that rendered some studies incomparable, according to a literature review published in the September issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). A team of researchers from Columbia ...

Lead and cadmium found in some chocolate bought in Brazil

2014-09-03

Scientists have found that commercial samples of chocolate purchased in Brazil contain varying levels of lead and cadmium, which can cause health problems, and that those levels are linked to how much cocoa a product contains. They reported their findings, which could have health implications — particularly for children — in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Solange Cadore and colleagues note that chocolate has many potential health benefits due to the high levels of flavonoids and antioxidants in its star ingredient, cocoa. But they also explain that other ...

Research finds crowdsourcing is vulnerable to malicious behavior

2014-09-03

New research has found that malicious behaviour is the norm in crowdsourcing competitions — even when it is in everyone's interest to cooperate. Crowdsourcing provides the ability to accomplish information-gathering tasks that require the involvement of a large number of people, often across wide-spread geographies, expertise, or interests. However, researchers from the University of Southampton and the National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) found that a significant feature of crowdsourcing — its openness of entry — makes it vulnerable ...

Enjoying the possibility of defeat

2014-09-03

Winning isn't everything, and in fact can even be a bit boring. Some people actually enjoy a game of tennis or poker more if their mettle is tested by a strong opponent – regardless of the outcome. It's the suspense and uncertainty of a close game that often brings them back for more, says a research team led by Sami Abuhamdeh of Istanbul Şehir University, in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion. Abuhamdeh's team tested the experiences of a group of 72 undergraduate university students who played four rounds of the Speed Slice game on Nintendo Wii. The objective ...

Study finds 'family meal' ideal is stressful, impossible for many families

2014-09-03

Magazines, television and other popular media increasingly urge families to return to the kitchen, stressing the importance of home-cooked meals and family dinners to physical health and family well-being. But new research findings from North Carolina State University show that home cooking and family meals place significant stresses on many families – and are simply impossible for others. "We wanted to understand the relationship between this ideal that is presented in popular culture and the realities that people live with when it comes to feeding their children," says ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

AI finds undiagnosed liver disease in early stages

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announce new research fellowship in malaria genomics in honor of professor Dominic Kwiatkowski