Electricity production markets

These other forest resources - unutilized trees from intensive forest management and the residue today left in the forest - could, if pressed to their maximum availability, contribute around 1 EJ to the energy supply. To do this will, however, require extensive end use product markets since the end use requirement of heat production in the forest industry will already be essentially satisfied by the industries own residue. The conversion problem is therefore the transformation of biomass to energy intermediates such as electricity for transmission elsewhere, automobile fuels such as the much discussed methanol option, or into energy intensive tonnage chemicals such as ammonia and ethylene. 

Other participating sectors also have the potential to profit in similar ways, but the net impact is complicated by details of electricity retail market regulation, by international trade, and by downstream company, regional and product differentiation. 

In order to select the electricity production that maximizes the profit returned from its sale, the market price of electricity, MPE, must be known. The net revenue generated by the sale of... 

Examination of these curves shows an increase in the optimal amount of electricity as the market price of electricity increases. Also, as fuel costs rise, the optimal amount of electricity production decreases. 

The hybrid solar concentrator is a potential leap frog technology that may rapidly lower the cost of clean hydrogen in light of the following the imminent market entry of CPV systems for electricity production solar cell efficiencies above 40%, with clearer ideas for 50%-efficient solar cells and the opportunity to use wasted solar heat for augmenting solar electrolysis. 

When all the costs are taken together, a value of 0.45 Euro/litre is calculated for the production costs of the FT liquids (based on the net electricity production and when the electricity is sold as green). This value is higher than the cost price of fossil transportation fuels of 0.34 Euro/litre, but sufficiently below the market price (in The Netherlands in October 2000) of 0.91 EuroAitre to have room for tax incentives from the government. 

The production of renewable energy in the electricity sector should be considered in relation to the privatisation of the electricity production and distribution companies and the liberalisation of the electricity market in the Netherlands and for a large part in Europe. Despite this uncertain future a large number of initiatives and projects have been developed to increase the production of renewable electricity and heat in the coal-fired power plants in the Netherlands. 

Despite these limitations, the eco-efficiency analysis provides a good bases for discussion. Figure 5.8 compares different alternatives, showing that, for example, the use of biomass for electricity production via the conventional combustion route is not different, in terms of eco-efficiency, with respect to biodiesel, while bioethanol is slightly worse. The best situation is for vitamin B2 by fermentation, but clearly the dimension of the market between vitamin B2 and biofuels is completely different. 

Data calculation is likewise a component of an inventory analysis. The question of allocation is here especially of importance. An aUocatiOTi should always be carried out when dealing with systems involving multiple products (e.g. electricity and steam as by-products from a power plant). It is then important to define a key to allocate the environmental burdens of the production to the individual product, since in a specific case we require only the data of e.g. electricity production, but have to exclude the share which is linked to the steam production. This requirement of carrying out an allocation of the environmental burdens also applies for recycling. The most appropriate allocation key is typically the market value of the co-products, but e.g. the energy content and others are also in use, depending on the specific situation. 

Patent applications are written to protect know-how. Patents contain examples to prove the inventions. Tables existing in patents show the advantages of the invented products or processes in comparison to the state of the art. The data published in patents over the years cannot be compared with each other, because the test methods (some standardized, some not) have been changed, and misleading conclusions could be made. On the other hand, the products marketed by different companies have technical data sheets made in accordance with the valid standards, e.g. IEC (International Electrical Commission). It is difficult, if not impossible, to get a link between the data from a patent applications and data sheets. Therefore no tables from patents have been included in this review. The tables listing properties are summaries of data sheets from our company products. 

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